Transforming sustainable development diplomacy: lessons learned from global forest governance

TRANSFORMING:SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT DIPLOMACY

Lessons Learned FromGlobal Forest Governance

Hans HoogeveenPatrick Verkooijen

Thesis Committee

Thesis supervisorProf. dr. ir. Rudy RabbingeUniversity ProfessorWageningen University

Thesis co-supervisorsProf. dr. William MoomawProfessor of International Environmental PolicyFletcher School of Law and DiplomacyTufts University, USA

Prof. dr. Adil NajamFrederick S. Pardee Professor of Global Public PolicyBoston University, USA

Other members (Committee Hans Hoogeveen)Prof. dr. Herman J.P. Eijsackers, VU University AmsterdamProf. dr. ir. Louise O. Fresco, University of AmsterdamProf. dr. Jagmohan S. Maini, University of Toronto, CanadaProf. dr. Cees P. Veerman, Wageningen University

Other members (Committee Patrick Verkooijen)Prof. dr. Bas J.M. Arts, Wageningen UniversityProf. dr. Hosny El Lakany, University of British Columbia, CanadaProf. dr. Jagmohan S. Maini, University of Toronto, CanadaProf. dr. ing. Geert Teisman, Erasmus University

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Transforming Sustainable Development Diplomacy:Lessons Learned from Global Forest Governance

Hans HoogeveenPatrick Verkooijen

Thesissubmitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor

at Wageningen Universityby the authority of the Rector Magnificus

Prof. dr. M.J. Kropffin the presence of the

Thesis Committee appointed by the Doctorate Boardto be defended in public

on Wednesday, 6 January 2010in the Aula

Hans Hoogeveen, Patrick VerkooijenTransforming Sustainable Development Diplomacy:Lessons Learned from Global Forest Governance,176 pages.

Thesis, Wageningen University, Wageningen, NL (2010)With references, with a summary in English

ISBN: 978-90-8585-533-0

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Propositions

1. Sustainable Development is a global issue, which needs attribution ofappropriate scale in order to attain successes in Sustainable DevelopmentDiplomacy (this thesis).

2. A portfolio approach should be adopted for successful Sustainable DevelopmentDiplomacy (this thesis).

3. The complexity of the solution has to match the complexity of problems, such assustainable development (Najam, Christopoulou and Moomaw, 2004).

4. Given the inherent complexity and interconnections of involved issues a newdiplomacy is needed to link multiple issues such as agriculture, forests,biodiversity and climate change in order to successfully address any one ofthem (Najam, Christopoulou and Moomaw, 2004).

5. The international system of diplomacy, given its fragmentation, lack of co-herency and lack of implementation, is heading into a dead-end street.

6. Effective leadership requires a global and inclusive mindset to changetraditional diplomacy towards a more flexible approach that can respondto rapidly changing conditions, while meeting international agreed goals.

Propositions belonging to the thesis, entitled

“Transforming Sustainable Development Diplomacy: Lessons Learned from GlobalForest Governance”.

Hans HoogeveenWageningen, 6 January 2010.

Propositions

1. Institutional space is needed for successful Sustainable DevelopmentDiplomacy (this thesis).

2. Sustainable Development Diplomacy needs deeper participation of all relevantstakeholders (this thesis).

3. It is essential to engage development banks, such as the World Bank, inaddressing any of the major sustainable development issues including forests,biodiversity, oceans, climate change or water (Najam, Papa and Taiyab, 2006).

4. A new diplomacy is required that recognizes the inherent complexity of issuesand the changed realities of sustainable development governance (Najam,Christopoulou and Moomaw, 2004).

5. The obsessive attention for climate change is counterproductive for sustainabledevelopment.

6. Global leadership of the European Union is impossible if the internalstructures, institutional arrangements and coordination mechanisms remain asthey are now.

Propositions belonging to the thesis, entitled

“Transforming Sustainable Development Diplomacy: Lessons Learned from GlobalForest Governance”.

Patrick VerkooijenWageningen, 6 January 2010.

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Table Of ContentsPreface

Summary

Chapter 1: IntroductionCo-authors: Hans Hoogeveen and Patrick Verkooijen

1.1 The Crisis of Multiple Crises1.2 Historical Perspectives on Forests1.3 Forest Decline1.4 Multiple Dimensions of Forests1.5 Issues Confronting Forests1.6 Governance1.7 Research Questions1.8 Study Outline

Chapter 2: The Emergent System of Global Forest Governance and its Chal-lenges

Lead author: Hans Hoogeveen; Co-author: Patrick Verkooijen2.1 Introduction2.2 The Emergent System of Sustainable Development Governance2.3 Governance Challenges for Sustainable Development: What is the Problem?

a. Proliferation of MEAs and Fragmentation of Sustainable DevelopmentGovernance

b. Lack of Cooperation and Cooperation among InternationalOrganizations

c. Lack of Implementation, Enforcement, and Effectiveness in SustainableDevelopment Governance

d. Inefficient Use of Resourcese. Sustainable Development Governance in the Broader Contextf. Non-state Actors in a State-centric System

2.4 Global Forest Governance and Diplomacy: The Storya. The Beginningb. World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Developmentc. Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF)d. Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF)e. United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF)f. A New Beginning...?

2.5 The Evolution of Global Forest Governancea. Emerging Ideas in Forest Policyb. Towards Sustained Yieldc. From Sustainable Yield toward Sustainable Forest Managementd. Sustainable Forest Management toward Forests for Sustainable

Developmente. Toward the Future

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2.6 Challenges for Global Forest Governancea. Complexity of Issues, Inter-linkages, Fragmentation and Proliferations of

Arenasb. Complexity of Actors, Lack of Cooperation and Coordinationc. Complexity of Instruments and Lack of Implementation

Chapter 3: Issues and LinkagesLead author: Patrick Verkooijen; Co-author: Hans Hoogeveen

3.1 Introduction3.2 Forest Linkages

Forests and DevelopmentForests and TradeForests, Livelihood, and Human HealthForests and SecurityForests and BiodiversityForests and Climate Change

3.3 Concluding Thoughts

Chapter 4: Actors in Global Forest GovernanceLead author: Patrick Verkooijen; Co-author: Hans Hoogeveen

4.1 Introduction4.2 State Actors

Policy Coherence and Intra-governmental CoordinationInternational Organizations

4.3 Market ActorsForest “users” gaining livelihoodsForest “producers” acquiring commoditiesForest “consumers” seeking utilityForest “investors” getting a return

4.4 Civil Society ActorsCSOs as advocatesCSOs as monitorsCSOs as innovatorsCSOs as service providersOther CSO Players: Knowledge Community

4.5 Concluding Thoughts

Chapter 5: Policy InstrumentationLead author: Hans Hoogeveen; Co-author: Patrick Verkooijen

5.1 Introduction5.2 Policy Instruments for Global Forest Governance: The Context5.3 Relevant Policy Instruments for Global Forest Governance: A Closer Look

a. Legally Binding InstrumentsUnited Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC)Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

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United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in thoseCountries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification,particularly in Africa (UNCCD)Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of WildFauna and Flora (CITES)International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA)World Trade Organization (WTO)

b. Soft Law: Non-Legally Binding InstrumentsAgenda 21Forest PrinciplesIPF/IFF Proposals for actionWorld Summit on SustainableDevelopment/Johannesburg Plan of ImplementationMillennium Development Goals (MDG)Non-Legally Binding Instrument on All Types of Forests (NLBI)

c. Market-Based and Non-State InstrumentsIndependent CertificationMinisterial Processes for Forest Law Enforcement andGovernance (FLEG)Public-Private Mechanisms

5.4 Constraints to Implementation

Chapter 6: Conclusions: A New Diplomacy for Global Forest GovernanceCo-authors: Hans Hoogeveen and Patrick Verkooijen

Hypothesis 1. Scale and Subsidiarity: Identification and attribution of theappropriate scale increases the probability of success of the system of globalforest governance.

Hypothesis 2. Issues and Arenas: The development of institutional space forinstitutional interaction increases the probability of success of the evolvingsystem of global forest governance.

Hypothesis 3. Actors: The probability of success of the system of global forestgovernance increases when deeper participation of all relevant stakeholdersis ensured.

Hypothesis 4. Policy instrumentation: The fixation with one comprehensiveagreement distracts attention from other avenues of the diplomacy ofglobal forest governance that have a better potential for resolution andfor implementation.

Hypothesis 5. Policy instrumentation: Portfolio Approach – The probabilityof success of the system of global forest governance rises when a portfolioapproach is adopted.

Hypothesis 6. Leadership: A system of global forest governance cannot succeed inthe absence of effective entrepreneurial leadership on the parts of individuals.

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References

Annexes

Annex I. Forest Timeline

Annex II. Non-legally Binding Authoritative Statement of Principles fora Global Consensus on the Management, Conservation andSustainable Development of all Types of Forests

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1 Global Forest and Percentage CoverTable 2.1 United Nations Forum on Forests: The 16 elements of the multi-year

programme of workTable 3.1 Land Use ReturnTable 3.2 Possible scope of REDD mitigation measuresTable 4.1 Exemplars of CSOs in various roles, at various levels of discourseTable 5.1 Overview of Forest Financing Sources

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1 Change in global forest cover from approximately the year1000 to 2005

Figure 1.2 Designated Primary Functions of ForestsFigure 1.3 Forests in a Land-use ContinuumFigure 1.4 Direct Causes of Changes in Forest AreaFigure 1.5 Forest Transition CurveFigure 2.1 Three Pillars of Sustainable DevelopmentFigure 2.2 The “wedge” diagramFigure 3.1 Systems diagramFigure 3.2 CO2 emissions from land use change, 2005Figure 3.3 Forest Carbon CycleFigure 4.1 Four-realities: Mapping interests and forest concernsFigure 4.2 Tropical countries’ forest endowments: Distinct situations,

different approaches neededFigure 4.3 Schemata of Market Actors

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LIST OF BOXES

Box 2.1 The Ten Resolutions of the World Commission on Forestsand Sustainable Development

Box 2.2 Interagency Turf Wars: The Implosion of the CollaborativePartnership on Forests (CPF)

Box 2.3 UNFF Global Objectives for Sustainable Forest ManagementBox 3.1 Underlying Causes for Deforestation and DegradationBox 3.2 Forests and Development – The Amazon BasinBox 3.3 Forest Sector GovernanceBox 3.4 Forests and Trade – RussiaBox 3.5 Non-Timber Forest ProductsBox 3.6 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous PeoplesBox 3.7 Forests, Livelihoods, and Human Health – Indonesian FiresBox 3.8 Forests and Security – LiberiaBox 3.9 Typology of Property RightsBox 3.10 The World Bank’s Revised Forest StrategyBox 3.11 Costa Rica’s Payment for Environmental Services ProgramBox 3.12 Forests and Biodiversity – Congo BasinBox 3.13 Adaptation and Coastal MangrovesBox 4.1 Furious Politicians Leaving New YorkBox 4.2 Forest Finance and Competing ClaimsBox 4.3 A Parable: The Secretariat as GatekeeperBox 4.4 The Prince’s Rainforest ProjectBox 4.5 Limited Participation of CSOs in Forest NegotiationsBox 5.1 Some Recurring Principles in International Environment

and Development AgreementsBox 5.2 Forest Stewardship Council PrinciplesBox 5.3 Examples of PPPs on ForestsBox 5.4 How to bring new ideas into the system

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ACRONYMS:

CBC Centers for Biodiversity ConservationCBD Convention on Biological DiversityCBFP Congo Basin Forest PartnershipCDM Clean Development MechanismCI Conservation InternationalCITES Convention on the International Trade in Endangered SpeciesCOFO Committee on ForestryCPF Collaborative Partnership on ForestsCSD Commission on Sustainable DevelopmentCSO Civil Society OrganizationEDF Environmental Defense FundEIA Environmental Investigation AgencyENB Earth Negotiation BulletinETS Emissions Trading SchemeFAO Food and Agriculture OrganizationFERN Forests and European Union Resource NetworkFCPF Forest Carbon Partnership FacilityFIP Forest Investment ProgramFPIC Free, Prior and Informed ConsentFSC Forest Stewardship CouncilGEF Global Environmental FacilityGFG Global Forest GovernanceGFP Growing Forest PartnershipsGHG Greenhouse GasIFF International Forum on ForestsIGO Intergovernmental organizationIISD International Institute for Sustainable DevelopmentIPF International Panel on ForestsITTA International Tropical Timber AgreementITFF Interagency Task Force on ForestsITTO International Tropical Timber OrganizationIUCN International Union for the Conservation of Nature

and Natural Resources

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IUFRO International Union of Forest Research OrganizationsIWG International Working Group on Forests for Interim FinanceMDGs Millennium Development GoalsMEAs Multilateral Environmental AgreementsNLBI Non-Legally Binding Instrument on All Types of ForestsNGO Non-governmental organizationPES Payment for environmental servicesPPP Public Private PartnershipPROFOR Program on ForestsREDD Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and DegradationRRI Rights and Resource InstituteSDD Sustainable Development DiplomacySDG Sustainable Development GovernanceSDGD Sustainable Development Governance and DiplomacySFM Sustainable Forest ManagementTFD The Forest DialogueTIMOs Timberland Management OrganizationUNCCD United Nations Convention to Combat DesertificationUNCED United Nations Conference on the Environment and DevelopmentUNDP United Nations Development ProgrammeUNDRIP United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous PeoplesUNEP United Nations Environment ProgrammeUNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate ChangeUNFF United Nations Forum on ForestsUN-REDD United Nations Collaborative Programme on REDDWCED World Commission on Environment and DevelopmentWCFSD World Commission on Forests and Sustainable DevelopmentWCS World Conservation StrategyWSSD World Summit on Sustainable DevelopmentWTO World Trade Organization

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PrefaceSince forest issues entered the international agenda in the early 1980s, global forestpolitics and policies have been developed rapidly. Compared to three decades ago, eventhough the system of global forest governance has achieved much in the way of newinstruments, more money, and a more participatory and active system than anyoneanticipated, deforestation and forest degradation continues. Global forest governanceis the end product of an array of political, economic, environmental and social dynamicsarising at the international, regional, national, and local level. Over the last few decades,particularly since 1992, a whole array of forest instruments, organizations, andinstitutions have been developed – some organically and others deliberately – the sumof which looks remarkably like an early, and rather disheveled, prototype of a globalnetwork of forest actors and institutions; one or both of the authors played an active rolein at least part of the formation of this emerging system of global forest governance.Hans Hoogeveen represented, amongst others, the European Union in 1997 and 2005during the negotiations at the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) and itsinstitutional predecessor. Since then he was elected as the Chairperson of the seventhsession of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF7) which negotiated in the wordsof the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon, ‘a landmark agreement:the first-ever non-legally binding agreement on forests, endorsed by the GeneralAssembly. The new instrument addresses the full spectrum of issues, from completeprotection to sustainable use, from people to the environment to economics”(September, 2009). Patrick Verkooijen acted as member of the EU Presidency team in2005 and the Chair’s Presidency team of UNFF7 after which he took on the assignmentat the World Bank to develop a new global Forest Investment Program (FIP) with aview to leverage increased funds to bring about the reduction of deforestation anddegradation and to improve sustainable forest management, leading to the reduction ofemissions and protection of forest carbon stock.

During this engagement, we came gradually, but surely to the realization that thetraditional tools of diplomacy that we have applied and the system of governance wehave tried to construct around forests has not worked. Despite all the good efforts andbest intensions, deforestation and forest degradation continues rapidly. It is not theactors who have tried to solve the problem have not worked hard enough, nor that theyhave not come up with good ideas. It is, instead, that traditional tools of diplomacy thatthey have been applying ever so diligently are no longer the appropriate tools. Althoughwe are great believers and strong advocates of global governance and diplomacy, basedon our experience in multilateral negotiations we developed a rather intuitive uneaseof the mismatch between global level outcomes – if reached at all – and national or subnational implementation of these agreements. More often than not, many decisionsstemming from UN diplomacy bear the risk of becoming a dead letter without little orno impact at the (sub)national level. During our many encounters in New York we alsowitnessed increasing negotiation fatigue, particularly among developing countries, whostruggle to meet the institutional demands as the number of institutions andinternational agreements increases.

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As the first decade of the twenty-first century comes to a close, mounting challengesfacing the world are characterized by the intensifying interconnectedness of global andregional issues: political tensions, climate change, water shortages, financial, economicand food crises, ecosystem disruptions, increasing instability and persistent poverty.Against this background of a shared urgency for transformational change, we decidedsome years ago in the margins of a global negotiation session in New York to organizeour thoughts and views in a more comprehensive manner allowing us to reflect upon ourexperience. A partial offspring of this common agenda is this thesis which wasconducted amidst our very intensive travel commitments stemming from the demandsof the international calendar. In this, we would like to share our insights and personalexperience of the dynamics in the evolution of the system of global forest governancewith a view to draw lessons of the factors that make the system of global forestgovernance and its diplomacy more effective for altering the behavior of actors in thesystem and, in the process, for solving or alleviating deforestation and degradation. Wefully realize that people clear and log forests for a reason. A simple economic frameworkapplies to all forest actors: subsistence households and large companies; farmers,ranchers, and loggers. The framework revolves around the relative attractiveness ofmaintaining forest relative to converting it to agriculture or other land use functions.Many observers predict that pressures on forests will not disappear soon. Croplands,pastures, and plantations are expanding into natural forests and will likely to do so forthe next 30-50 years.

Despite these dark forecasts, we are both optimists by nature. And, we believe, for goodreasons. In our practice we notice that there are many signs that a new form ofdiplomacy is already beginning to emerge. Complex connections are beginning to bemade. Innovations around actor participation are being experimented with. Non-traditional instruments are emerging. We are convinced that there is great potential‘untapped’ to find other ways of ensuring the level of collective action required toaddress the next generation of sustainable development challenges. To do this, the artand science of sustainable development diplomacy must be enhanced. Diplomats,business leaders, non-governmental organizations, scientists, indigenous peoples andmany others will need to find new ways of working together. As Larry Susskind alreadynoted in his seminal work about 15 years ago ‘it will not help, the way it sometimesdoes, to break the problem into smaller, more manageable, pieces’ (Susskind, 1994).Only a comprehensive global approach to sustainable development will work. This, inshort, is our aspiration for a revitalized New Diplomacy for the Global Governance ofForests.

This thesis could not have been written without the help of many people. It is a pleasureto record a number of debts of gratitude to those who played critical roles at one timeor another during the life of the preparation of this thesis. We had the extraordinarybenefit over the last years to develop and refine our thinking on sustainabledevelopment diplomacy in general and global forest governance in particular througha constant dialogue with superb colleagues and close friends at the Fletcher School ofLaw and Diplomacy, Professor William Moomaw, and Professor Adil Najam of thePardee Center at Boston University. Over the years, we not only worked very intensely

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with both of them – mostly over the weekends in Boston – on joint publications, suchas our joint Forest Financing Mechanism (FFM) report and a closely related bookproject on Sustainable Development Diplomacy, but we were also inspired to furtherdevelop and test new ideas and programs with the newly established Program onSustainable Development Diplomacy (SDD) as just one example. For us, it is crystalclear, without their support this thesis would not have been possible. We are alsoparticularly grateful to our principal supervisor at Wageningen University, professorRudy Rabbinge. His deep and comprehensive understanding of sustainable developmentat all levels and his informed criticism inspired many refinements and improvementsin the text. Any remaining errors are, of course, our sole responsibility.

Finally, our deep appreciation and love goes to our respective spouses, Margot de Jongand Nicole Verstegen, who were and remain a constant source of support and inspirationwhile taking care of our families during the intense travel over the last years. Theirpresence in our lives is a constant source of enrichment and gave us a sense of purposeto finish the thesis. To them we dedicate this thesis, while we know that the journey isnot over.

Hans Hoogeveen and Patrick VerkooijenBoston, The Hague, New York,

Washington D.C.November, 2009

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SSuummmmaarryyThe Crisis of Multiple CrisesSince sustainable development entered the international agenda in the mid-eighties,sustainable development governance (SDG) has evolved rapidly. The system we havetoday reflects both the successes and failures of this process. There is growingawareness that the present system of development is rapidly and irreversibly erodingall three pillars of sustainable development: economic, social and environmental; andnumerous international efforts have emerged to address these threats. The urgency,severity, complexity and global scale of the problems have outgrown the politicalinstitutions of governance, which are heavily constrained by competing interests of theparties, and by a set of operating principles that favors state interests over all othervalues. The international community has agreed that sustainable development shouldbe the road all nations should travel. Yet governments and institutions are not yetcapable of engaging in the diplomacy and creating the institutions of governance thatare required to achieve the goals of well being for all citizens of the world within asupportive natural environment, and an equitable economy using effective social andgovernmental institutions.

The term Sustainable Development Governance refers to the sum of organizations,policy instruments, financing mechanisms, rules, procedures, norms, that regulate theprocesses of sustainable development at the global, regional, national, and local level.Sustainable Development Diplomacy (SDD) is the tool, or the process, that is availableto the international community to create an effective system of global sustainabledevelopment governance. The current governance system’s high maintenance needs,its internal redundancies and its inherent inefficiencies, have combined to have theperverse effect of impeding the achievement of sustainable development worldwide(Najam et.al., 2006). Against this background, we define Global Forest Governance(GFG) as a subset of the broader sustainable development agenda. The development ofGFG is highly interlinked with and related to the development of the encompassingsystem of global SDD. We take as our point of analytical departure that GFG is not onlya cornerstone of sustainable development, but that to understand the complexities,challenges and nuances of GFG it has to be placed within the evolving concept ofsustainable development.

We acknowledge that the term crisis is often overused. However, the rapid rise ofmultiple, interconnected problems of major proportions defies a more modest name.The world in the beginning of the twenty-first century is faced with intensifyinginterconnected global and regional issues, such as political tension and uncertainty,economic and food crisis, climate change, water shortages, ecosystem disruptions,increasing social inequality and persistence poverty. The food riots in certain regions ofthe world in 2008 were manifestations of these trends that blur the boundaries betweenpolitical, economic, agricultural, energy, trade, climate change, technology and otherfactors. How to feed the estimated 9 billion people in 2050 is one of the biggestchallenges we face. The disjuncture between the global nature of the challenges and

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the national centers of decision-making became more than ever clear (Weiss, 2009). Weappear to be confronted with a crisis of multiple crises: an energy crisis, a food crisis, aclimate change crisis, an ecological crisis and, more recently, also a financial crisis. Whatis only now becoming apparent is that these individual large-scale crises are connectedin complex ways, and our traditional approach to managing global and internationalproblems is proving insufficient to the task. Forests, as is argued in this thesis, are atthe heart of sustainable development, and provide a useful lens for examining this newphenomenon of complexity and the need for a new approach for managing it. While thisstudy emphasizes the complexity of forest linkages and the implications for global forestgovernance and its diplomacy, not about the causes of deforestation and forestdegradation, it is important to have a firm grasp on the latter. The breadth of the causesunderscores the complexity of the problem and has significant implications for ouranalysis and the way forward.

This thesis builds on the premise that the goal of the international community has beento create an effective system of global sustainable development governance, includingeffective forest governance. Diplomacy is the tool, or the process, that is available tothe international community to do so. In this study we will analyze why theinternational community has not succeeded in creating effective systems of global forestgovernance. Governance systems are assumed to be complex by definition (Hoogeveenet.al., 2008; Teisman et.al., 2008). These processes are the coordinated actions of publicand private actors around collective issues (Boons et.al., 2008). We accept as a basicassumption that due to the diversity of issues, actors and instruments, the complexityof global governance, and, in particular, global forest governance has increased.Although complexity is not, in and of itself, a negative characteristic, it may create a setof challenges for the system of global forest governance, making it, amongst others,more difficult to accomplish a coherent set of goals on forests. The question is whetherthe system of global forest governance is equipped to address this complexity and if not,how this complexity should be addressed. In this, we claim that a reductionist approachexclusively focusing on the parts of the system alone does not generate anunderstanding of the system as a whole.

The goal of this study is to expand our understanding of the system of global forestgovernance and its underlying patterns. It builds on the working assumption that a defacto “system” of global forest governance already exists. In this, we define a system asthe emerging interactions between the elements of the system that generate theoutcome of governance processes (Boons et.al., 2008). We accept that the de facto systemis neither neat nor simple and works in a rather non-linear, non-hierarchical, andintertwined fashion (Najam et.al., 2004). We accept that complex governance systems,such as this case study, must be analyzed by studying their parts as well as the emergentpatterns that result from their co-evolution (Teisman et.al, 2008).

The overarching research question of this thesis is what we can learn about how thesystem of the diplomacy of global forest governance evolves by analyzing thecomponents of the system in an integrated way. Is the current multi-dimensionalprocess of sustainable development governance and its diplomacy evolving in a manner

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that it can achieve the agreed goals, objectives and targets, such as those agreed withinthe realm of global forest governance? Based on this research we will aim todemonstrate that a type of new diplomacy is required to create a more effective systemof global sustainable development governance, including global forest governance. Thesearch for an answer to this question raises a series of more focused questions aroundthree interrelated focal areas encompassing the system of global forest governance:issues, actors and institutions. These questions are embedded into the broader debateon what the drivers of societal change are on decision-making of predominantlycentralized, top-down and vertical steering processes at the global level.

The emphasis of this study is to identify the factors that make the system of globalforest governance and its diplomacy more or less effective as mechanisms for alteringthe behavior of actors in international society and, in the process, for solving oralleviating a variety of problems, including through addressing the underlying causesof deforestation and degradation.

Although we are aware of the broader scholarly debate, we accept as the relevant testfor discerning an impact of this type is whether the system affects the management ofthe problem that motivated its creation by inducing changes in the behavior of statesand other actors whose behavior is directly involved in the relevant behavioral complex.Our working assumption is that a system of global forest governance that channelsbehavior in such a way as to eliminate or substantially ameliorate the problem that ledto its creation is an effective system. A system that has marginal behavioral impact, bycontrast, is an ineffective system. This assumption implies, of course, that the conceptof effectiveness as applied to the system of global forest governance defines a continuousvariable. The system can range along a continuum from ineffectual arrangements,which wind up as dead letters, to highly effective arrangements, which produce quickand decisive solutions to the problem at hand (Young, 1994).

In our study we claim that the case study we have chosen for in-depth study in ouranalysis – the system of the diplomacy of global forest governance – has been in placelong enough to compile track records that can be evaluated systematically. A centralcomponent of the case study, then, consists of a causal narrative that details the effectsproduced by the system of global forest governance and seeks to identify causalconnections between the relevant behavior and the operation of the system. Causalitywill not be interpreted in this study in the pure positivist sense but much more forpatterns within the complex system of global forest governance and the resultingdynamics.

We believe our case study is sufficiently diverse to provide insights into the nature of thevarious behavioral mechanisms and the conditions under which they operate relevantfor the broader system of sustainable development governance and diplomacy. Basedon our practical experience in the governance and diplomacy of a range of other complexglobal public good issues, such as biodiversity, fisheries, agriculture, and climate change,we expect our findings have relevance in these domains as well. From a theoreticalperspective future research on other case studies within the domain of sustainabledevelopment should be developed as vehicles for probing the relevance of our model to

actual behavior governed by the broader system of sustainable development diplomacy.

The Emergent System of Global Forest Governance and itsChallengesSince forest issues entered the international agenda in the early 1980s, global forestpolitics and policies have been developing rapidly (Humphreys, 2006). The GFG systemwe have today may reflect both the successes and failures of this process. On the onehand, there is a high awareness of threats to forests and numerous efforts have emergedto address them globally. However, at the same time – and ironically partly because ofthe rather spectacular growth in awareness and initiatives – the GFG system may haveoutgrown its original design and intent in terms of addressing the problems and societalgoals that led to its creation.

We accept as our basic assumption that the effectiveness of SDD will ultimately dependon its simultaneous implementation at both the global and domestic levels. Thisassumption also applies for GFG. National implementation is the ultimate indicatorboth to the efficacy of the GFG system and to meaningful actions on the ground (Young,1994). However, within the context of our study, we focus principally on the global andinstitutional aspects of GFG, including efforts to create the support for domesticimplementation, but not including the considerable challenges of domesticimplementation itself. That is a crucial issue as well, and one worth seriously studying,but it lies beyond the scope of our study.

Forest issues are complex and have multiple perspectives and linkages to the full rangeof sustainable development issues, such as poverty reduction and livelihoods, trade andeconomic development, security, biodiversity and climate. To handle this complexity,GFG has shifted over time to better address emerging priorities. This evolution is notunexpected, as generally governance progresses and discourse evolves as issues changeover time (Arts, 2008). Looking at GFG, the emergence of new dominant ideas haveshaped – and reshaped – forest policy. Over the last forty years, these shifts havetransformed forest policy from a ‘commodity issue’ into a ‘biodiversity issue,’ ‘asustainable development issue,’ ‘a human rights issue’ among others (Arts, 2008).Global forest governance and diplomacy is facing the same basic problems andchallenges as those of other aspects of sustainable development governance. Thesechallenges all relate to the increasing complexity of GFG: (i) complexity of issues, inter-linkages, fragmentation, and proliferations of arenas, (ii) complexity of actors and lackof cooperation and coordination, and (iii) complexity of instruments and lack ofimplementation

Issues and LinkagesIn this thesis we develop a pathway through the complexity and cross-sectoral natureof international forest policy from a multi-issue perspective. The realization that forestswere much more than commodities to be claimed or land to be cleared altered the natureof the international dialogue significantly (Maini, 2004). New connections between

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forests and other issues were increasingly being recognized, such as the dependence ofindigenous peoples on forests for their livelihoods and security concerns associated withillicit activities (Maini, 2003). The emergence of these new linkages added another layerof complexity to the evolving system of global forest governance, which intensified morerecently when climate change surfaced as a new international threat with a profoundforest-related dimension. A range of sector-based lenses are used: development, trade,livelihoods and human health, security, biodiversity and climate change. Through thesedifferent lenses we seek to understand the extensive range of cross-sectoral linkagesbetween these respective domains that affect forest management (Maini, 1996).

Actors in Global Forest GovernanceGlobal forest governance, by its very nature, includes a vast number of actors that varywidely in their type and specific interests and goals. From global institutions to localcivic groups, from national governments to indigenous peoples, from large multinationalbusinesses to smallholders dependent on forest products – forests are a key concern fora very wide range of actors, with a variety of interests and with very different, andsometimes contradictory, priorities. It is not only that there are many actors; it is alsothat there are many different types of actors (Najam, 1997). Institutions carry withthem the additional complexity that they are made up of individuals who operate asagents for larger group interests but they also have their own motivations and interests(Susskind, 1994). This thesis identifies major types of actors involved in the system ofglobal forest governance and discusses the roles they play in the system. The purposeof doing so is not simply to demonstrate the complexity in actor constellation in thisprocess but also to highlight that this complexity – or, more precisely, the complicationsthat arise because of this complexity – impacts the efficacy of global forest governance.Effective governance requires that the tools of diplomacy are used to address andaccommodate the differing priorities and interests of different actors in a way that isconsistent both with their own priorities and with global forest priorities (Young, 1994).Managing actor complexity – in terms of numbers and diversity – is certainly achallenge, but it can also be an opportunity because more actors also provide moreopportunity for coalitions, cross-trade, and innovative approaches to the division ofresponsibilities and roles in a complex system (Najam, 1997).

This thesis highlights the characteristics of various types of actors, points out nuanceddistinctions within those types of actors and the ways those actors interact, and alsoprovides examples of how these actors influence global forest governance. We do so byproviding some illustrative examples of existing activities and initiatives that arealready going on or are looming in the near future. In this thesis actors are divided inthree broad meta-categories – state actors, market actors, and civil society actors.Within each of these meta-categories we provide a conceptual framework to help usarrive at a more nuanced sense of how actors in these sectors actually impact the stateof the world’s forests and their global governance. This in itself supports the claim fora polycentric perspective of global forest governance which seems a more adequaterepresentation of the complex reality. However, there has been some headway in tryingto involve non-state actors at the multilateral level, but these have often been piecemeal

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attempts and token gestures. There is, as claimed in this thesis, an urgent need torethink the question of actors and participation.

Policy InstrumentationThe proliferation of international instruments, especially treaties or conventions, which,particularly where global forest governance is concerned, have complicated the issueand made effective governance more difficult at all levels. For example, forests areaddressed in different treaties or conventions and different international organizationsin connection with various other issues, including climate change, trade, biodiversityand agriculture. A variety of international actors implements, monitors, and enforcesthese agreements through different means and with a lack of coordination capacity andmechanisms, resulting in a suboptimal system of global forest governance. Scholars aswell as policy practitioners have become increasingly concerned about the ‘messiness’of the global sustainable development governance system (often called the ‘globalenvironmental governance’ (GEG) system, which is itself a problem since it focuses ononly one of the three pillars of sustainable development). Amongst the issues of concernidentified in this literature, the following are of special relevance to the system of globalforest governance: scale of governance / subsidiarity; treaty congestion; institutionaland policy fragmentation; negotiation fatigue; duplication and conflicting agendas.

The global forest governance system has been prolific in negotiating agreements, but,except for a few exceptions, has a rather dismal record in turning agreements into actualchange and implementation on the ground. At the global level, negotiators formallymeet within the UN system and given its intergovernmental character onlygovernments are involved in the final decision-making. This leads to the strong notionof diplomats that they can rule, manage or make society from New York, Rome orNairobi. It is not without reason that these diplomats press for treaties or conventionsas the main instrument, because they feel that such instruments have the power todirectly influence the behavior at the national or sub national level. This in itself hasbecome one of the major stumbling blocks for achieving sustainable forest managementworldwide. Such an approach does not give full justice to the changing national andinternational society where other non-state actors have gotten crucial roles andresponsibilities for achieving global objectives. Many decisions stemming from UNdiplomacy have therefore the risk of becoming a dead letter resulting in little or noimpact at the national level. Given the complexity of sustainable forest management ageneral premise is that not everything can or should be governed at a global level. Assuch subsidiarity should be the leading principle in the decision-making processeswithin the multilateral system. The essential idea, being that processes should bemanaged at the level closest to where the problems in forest governance happen, impliesthat we have to differentiate between those issues that are managed at the global level(such as global goals and targets) and matters that should be managed at the nationalor local level. Lack of implementation, coordination, compliance, enforcement andeffectiveness is a common problem in the international system (Najam, 2006). The cruxof the challenge is that the system has been so frantically obsessed with negotiationswhich are more process than content related, that it has paid little attention to

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implementation. There are also at least three key hurdles at the global level that haveconstrained the implementation on global forest issues: a lack of financial resources, alack of adequate compliance and enforcement mechanisms, and sovereignty concerns.

Conclusions: A New Diplomacy for the Global Governance of ForestsThis thesis has purposely sought to focus on the global governance of forests not simplybecause recent years have seen multiple efforts to find global governance solutions toforest challenges but, more importantly, because global decisions and structures havethe ability to directly impact – negatively or positively – the direction of what happenslocally. Bad decisions and inefficient institutions at the global level can not only distractfrom, they can actually impede, good efforts at the domestic and local levels (Banuri, etal., 2002). Conversely, good decisions and effective institutions at the global level havethe potential to not just facilitate but propel good outcomes at the domestic and locallevel – the level where these outcomes mean the most (Banuri, et. al., 2002). This is sofor most issues, and particularly so for the complex and interconnected challenges ofsustainable development.

In the concluding part of the thesis, we consolidate this process by deriving somehypotheses about factors governing the likelihood of success in efforts to developeffective governance systems and applying these hypotheses, in a preliminary way, tothe system of global forest governance. Based on the evidence from our analysis theresponse to our research questions is predicated on three key overarching propositionsrelated to, respectively, the analytical framework, the policy response and themethodological approach relevant to the system of global forest governance.

! First, that with any given challenge, the complexity of the solution has to match thecomplexity of the problem. Global forest governance is a highly interlinked and complexsystem that is the sum of organizations, policy instruments, financing mechanisms,rules, procedures, and norms that regulate forest processes – and, on a broader level, sus-tainable development – at the global, national, and local levels. Our analysis indicatesthat more effective global forest governance will come not from addressing any one (ora few) of these elements, but from systematically tackling these myriad elements ofglobal diplomacy and governance and, more importantly, the linkages between them.This makes the global governance of forests what social scientists call a ‘wicked problem’(Rittel and Weber, 1973): a problem that is inherently complex and to which there areno simple solutions, because of complex interconnections. Solutions that seek to ‘sim-plify’ the problem by assuming away part of the complexity are doomed to failure be-cause of the inherent complexity of the issues. Recognizing the ongoing desire ofdecision-makers for stability and simplification, an important conclusion of our researchis the notion that complexity is here to stay and that it can be looked upon not neces-sarily as a constraint but possibly as a vehicle of progress that contributes to more ef-fective governance systems (Teisman et.al., 2008).

! Our second proposition flows directly from the above and posits the need – indeed, thenecessity – for a ‘new diplomacy’ that recognizes not only the inherent complexity ofthe issue but also the changed realities of global forest governance. Diplomacy providesus the context and the tools for global governance, including of sustainable development,

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and within that context of the world’s forests. However, as with a host of other issues,the nature of forest issues and its many complex inter-linkages to a whole host of otherissues raises challenges for traditional practices of state diplomacy. At the same time,diplomacy itself has changed. Not only has the pace of international interaction in-creased on an increased number of issues, diplomatic ‘actors’ have themselves trans-formed. This reality of a complex issue and the dynamics of changing notions ofdiplomacy prompt the call for a ‘new diplomacy’ on global forests governance (Najam,Christopoulou and Moomaw, 2004).

! Finally, our third proposition is derived from our recognition that for a better under-standing of the evolving system of global forest governance, or sustainable developmentdiplomacy more broadly, the relationship between the parts must be studied, assumingthat the relationships are mutual, emergent and dynamic (Teisman et.al., 2008). Suchan integrated and evolutionary approach to governance increases our understanding ofthis system and thereby reducing the risks of a reductionist approach.

We acknowledge that our analysis of the evolving system of global forest governance isnot sufficient, nor intended, to constitute a conclusive test of the hypotheses for thebroader field of sustainable development diplomacy. Building upon the workingassumption that the case study we have selected has been in place long enough tosystematically analyze the critical determinants for the development of the system andits effectiveness, an inductive-deductive approach allows for the development and initialtesting of a set of hypotheses which are distilled from the forest case study. Although theforest case study is sufficiently diverse to provide general preliminary insights into thevarious behavioral mechanisms for the field of sustainable development diplomacy as awhole, this case study must be seen as an intellectual springboard by which we attemptto trigger a line of analysis that could well result in the formulation of a research agendafor this newly emerging research field by probing the relevance of our hypotheses toactual behavior in related case studies within the broader field of sustainabledevelopment diplomacy.

In the context of these three overarching propositions and in response to the researchquestions, we have developed some initial hypotheses about the determinants of successin institutional bargaining and make use of these hypotheses, in a preliminary way, toilluminate the process of forming more effective governance systems for sustainableforest management. These hypotheses form the core of what a ‘new diplomacy’ mightlook like if it were to embrace the inherent complexity of global forest governanceleading to enhanced governance capacity to deal effectively with complex problems.Building directly on the preceding discussion and in response to the overarchingresearch question what we can learn about how the system of the diplomacy of globalforest governance has evolved, we believe that there are at least six hypotheses that arecentral to devising a new approach, what we are calling the “new diplomacy for globalforest governance”. The points we raise here are especially pertinent in the context offorests, but they are not unique to the forest issue. Indeed, it is our contention thatforests are not atypical at all. Instead, they are an exemplar of a new set of complexglobal problems (including, for example, climate change, global finance and foodsecurity) that are crying out for an alternative approach to diplomacy – one that

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embraces the complexity of the problem, is not state-centric, involves a multitude ofstakeholders, operates differently at different policy scales, and seek an array ofappropriate toolkits rather than single solutions.

Hypothesis 1. Scale and Subsidiarity: Identification and attribution of theappropriate scale increases the probability of success of the system of globalforest governance.Based on the analysis in this study, we argue that global forest diplomacy has been toofocused at the apex, or the global policy level, even when the issues of actualimplementation are neither best understood nor best implemented at that level. Fromour case study we learned that UN headquarters discussions generally tend to operatein a particular logic of global inter-state politics. One where broad national interestsdefine not just the language but also the substance of negotiations. One where issuesget intertwined and subsumed within larger ongoing debates on delicate powerdynamics, and one where national prestige and image can overwhelm the issuecomplexities and local realities that are triggered by those complexities. Forests andsome forests stakeholders, particularly those with smaller voices, such as forestdependent communities, can often get subsumed in this operational logic. To increasethe probability of success of the system of global forest governance, space needs also tobe carved up for a more local discourse, for dealing with local and regional distinctionsand nuances, and shared concerns and interests that do not cross normal global policynegotiation lines. It is important to note that our hypothesis does not imply to turn‘global’ diplomacy into ‘local’ diplomacy. But it suggests that unless a space is carved outfor accommodating and responding to the more local, domestic, and regional realities,the efficacy of the global thrust will be progressively diluted and could ultimately erodetotally.

The recognition that not everything can be resolved from within the UN system impliestwo very important aspects in how a new model for global forest diplomacy mightoperate. First, it implies that while not all issues can be resolved from within the UN,some issues can – and, maybe, some issues can only be resolved from there. Secondly, itimplies that a first step in the new global forest diplomacy should be to determine whatthe appropriate level of discourse and action is for which discussion (i.e., the principleof subsidiarity).

Hypothesis 2. Issues and Arenas: The development of institutional space forinstitutional interaction increases the probability of success of the evolvingsystem of global forest governance.Throughout this thesis we have demonstrated the notion that the ‘system’ of globalforest diplomacy has been evolving with time. We have attempted to describe thedimensions of this evolution and argued that our inability to manage the emergingchallenges of sustainable forest management is related to our inability to fullyunderstand and keep up with this evolution and complexity. As a consequence, thetendency of decision-makers is to eliminate this complexity by defining narrowboundaries around these issues, such as forest carbon mitigation. Based on our analysis,

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and following other scholarly work, we claim that the system of global forest governancehas evolved into something far more complex than it was even until recently (Najam,Papa and Taiyab, 2006). Based on our findings we also believe that the evolutioncontinues and is likely to continue.

Our study also highlighted that the proliferation of arenas where forest governance isbeing discussed, which is also part of this non-linear evolution, could itself lead tosignificant management problems. While multiple arenas do provide the ability to dealwith different levels of the complexity at different forums, they also require a systemof inter-arena coordination. It is important to note that our hypothesis does not implyto create management super-structures within which all the myriad initiatives aresubsumed. Our research shows that a new diplomacy for global forest governance wouldrequire a more flexible institutional space where different institutions can network witheach other without trigger ‘turf’ sensitivities of the key actors. Based on our analysis weargue that the most effective institutional body to provide this system synergy wouldbe the UNFF. The Forum is already the de facto convening place of all policy discussionsrelated to the world’s forests. The UNFF can be the space where the system seeks todevelop a common guidance on which direction the system moves and how differentparts of the forests governance system interact. This would mean, however, that UNFFmoves from trying to act like a negotiation forum to become a management forum. Ourproposition is to make this convening function the UNFF’s primary responsibility andproviding it with the tools and incentives through which to succeed in this task.

Hypothesis 3. Actors: The probability of success of the system of global forestgovernance increases when deeper participation of all relevant stakeholdersis ensured.From our case study we learned there is no fixed content, nor is there a fixed set ofactors operating within the system of global forest governance. For a global forestgovernance system to become more effective we assert that we need new and innovativeways of thinking about what ‘participation’ in global forest governance really meansfor different actors. Based on our findings a new diplomacy for improved global forestgovernance must begin to rearrange the notion of ‘stakeholder participation’ itself.There are strong practical and conceptual – even moral – reasons to want to involve allof them in the governance of the world’s forests. But there is no reason - practical,conceptual, or moral - to assume that this means having to bring them all together inevery global forum to ensure an effective system of global forest governance. A criticaldeterminant for success, we believe, is to invest in a new diplomacy for global forestgovernance that allows multiple opportunities for multiple actors. Our proposition is notto exclude some actors from global diplomacy. At the same time, our analysis shows thatwe should depart from the widely shared notion that “all relevant stakeholders” shouldbe involved. Rather, it is to expand our understanding of what participation in globalgovernance means to include all the levels at which the implementation of global forestgovernance practically happens. Our approach is to expand not only the number ofactors that are involved in global forest governance but also to expand the range ofopportunities in which they can be meaningfully involved. At the same time, it is

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critically important to be selective in determining which actors should be involved.Those actors who have a critical role and the governance capacity in the implementationof the global outcomes should have a seat at the table.

The interconnected nature of today’s challenges resulted in suggestions for acoordinated response by a more coherent governance system. Coherence requiresreasonable coordination and regular communication among organizations. However, itdoes not require a super-organization, nor does it require a central control mechanismto coordinate every action of every organization in the international system. Betterpolicy coherence requires horizontal integration of global forest governance. First, ouranalysis indicates that there should be a commitment to deal with new issues in themost appropriate existing forums, rather than creating new instruments andinstitutions. Second, the current practice shows that each of the involved institutionshas its own forest pogram. Often it leads to competition and turf wars within the UNsystem. This clearly shows the need for clustering or merging of secretariats of MEAsand departments of UN organizations and the forest arena should be encouraged tofollow suit.

Hypothesis 4. Policy instrumentation: The fixation with one comprehensiveagreement distracts attention from other avenues of the diplomacy of globalforest governance that have a better potential for resolution and forimplementation.Among decision-makers there is an ongoing tendency towards creating stability andorder in governance systems. Based on our research it is not a surprise that for nearlytwo decades now the international discourse on global forest management has beenfixated on the x to negotiate an all-encompassing legally binding forest agreement. Thefixation on a single solution – be it a framework convention or a global forest fund – hasconcentrated the attention on the process of negotiation, even when manycommentators and practitioners alike have stated that it is unlikely that a meaningfulsingle instrument can be negotiated (Humphreys, 2006). In the process, other globalgovernance options for forests have either been ignored, or have received less attentionthan they deserved.

Based on our study there are at least three related reasons why, in the context of globalforest governance, we claim that a single, universal “Global Forest Convention,” perse, is not a critical determinant for success in terms of providing an effective systemfor global forest governance.

! First, from a practical perspective, it is clear – and has been for quite some time – thatthe political will and motivation for such a convention simply does not exist.

! Second, from a strategic perspective, the recurring rituals of discussing ideas aboutgrand solutions like a comprehensive forest convention are not just a nuisance but anactual drag on the time and resources of those involved in global negotiations. The fixation with a single agreement distracts attention from other avenues of global forestmanagement that have a better potential for resolution and for implementation.

! Finally, from a conceptual perspective, it is no longer clear that a global forest

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convention (or a single fund) would be an effective tool, even if it were politically possibleto attain agreement. The complexity of the issue and the myriad linkages to other challenging issues – for example, trade, climate change, biodiversity, etc. – militateagainst a single treaty solution and calls for a more nuanced set of cross-linkages withother issues and the conventions and treaties that govern them.

Our analysis shows that the international community need to build a response to thecomplexity of the issue that embraces that complexity and utilizes it to solve multipleproblems. In forest issues, as in many other complex sustainable development issues,soft law has tended to produce hard results (Hoogeveen et.al., 2008). We claim that thefixation with searching for hard law solutions needs to be nuanced with a recognitionthat an array of soft law instruments might be more effective to a single comprehensivehard law instrument.

Hypothesis 5. Policy instrumentation: Portfolio Approach – The probability ofsuccess of the system of global forest governance rises when a portfolioapproach is adopted.Based on our analysis, the system of global forest governance will be more effectivewhen it develops mechanisms that nurture, support, connect and coordinate globalefforts. The challenge is not one of negotiating a new grand instrument, but ofcoordinating multiple existing and new initiatives. Such an approach will need toinclude innovative and sometimes untried mechanisms. It will also require adaptivegovernance in order to be flexible to adjust to our ever changing world, including newactors, contexts, and challenges (Boons et.al., 2008). To be effective, it must beperformance based, requiring rigorous and constant assessment, and strongmechanisms of coordination and coherence between multiple instruments andinstitutions.

Based on our earlier research, such a ‘Portfolio Approach’ could consist of utilizing acombination of initiatives that can raise a variety of resources – including, monetaryresources, knowledge resources, capacity development, public support, and awareness–for effective global action on forests (Hoogeveen et.al., 2008). Simply stated, the notionof a Portfolio Approach is that instead of selecting a single (or small) set of instruments,a portfolio of complimentary instruments be nurtured for raising the required supportmechanisms (Hoogeveen et.al, 2008). Not all of the institutions and instruments in thisarchitecture would be state-centered. In our study we have demonstrated that marketinstruments and civil society institutions are as central to the effective governance ofour world’s forests as state institutions.

Hypothesis 6. Leadership: A system of global forest governance cannot succeedin the absence of effective entrepreneurial leadership on the part ofindividuals.Based on the evidence from our analysis we claim that a critical factor to develop aneffective system of global forest governance is the emergence of one or more individualsas effective leaders in the process and, conversely, that in the absence of such leadership,they will fail. Especially in the twenty-first century leadership is needed that recognizes

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the complexity of interconnected issues. In our experience we do not just refer topolitical leadership, but also to those who in the daily negotiations within the UNsystem can and are willing to show leadership. The complexity of the system not onlyasks for change in how we operate, but also a change in skills to make the system moreeffective.

Effective leadership requires a truly global and inclusive mindset to turn around thenotions of traditional diplomacy on its head building upon the recognition that thecomplexity of our evolving and polycentric governance systems is here to stay. In this,the leadership required has to be bold and innovative enough because the long-termchallenges of sustainable development are big enough.

It is clear that the traditional tools of diplomacy that we have applied and the systemof governance we have tried to construct around the forest issue has not worked. It isnot that the actors who have tried to solve the problem have not worked hard enough,nor that they have not come up with good ideas. It is, instead, that traditional tools ofdiplomacy that they have been applying ever so diligently are no longer the appropriatetools.

In our study we have tried to outline the overarching propositions of what we believeare the essential determinants of success of a new diplomacy for the global governanceof forests. We envisage a diplomacy that is built around the premise that the complexityof the solutions has to match the complexity of the problem and that the inherentcomplexity of the forests problem has to be recognized and incorporated into anygovernance mechanism that is established.

During our study we have learned that there are many signs that a de facto newdiplomacy is already beginning to emerge. Complex connections are beginning to bemade. Innovations around actors and participation are being experimented with. Non-traditional instruments are emerging and the seeds of a portfolio approach have alreadybeen sowed. However, we recognize that all major systems are inherently resistant tochange while forces of inertia seek to keep systems moving along familiar paths. As wehave learned, the established system seeks to resist and reject attempts at change. Ourresearch indicated the profound challenges of the current system of global forestdiplomacy system while at the same time highlighted many experiments and effortsthat are, in fact, moving in the right direction in terms of increasing the probability ofsuccessful implementation.

To the extent that the arguments sets forth in this study are convincing it should beapparent that we need to devote much more attention in the future to exploring thenature of sustainable development diplomacy. Although efforts have gone into theeffectiveness of subcomponents of the system of global governance, or more preciselyglobal forest governance, our understanding of the determinants of success of theeffectiveness of the system as a whole is rudimentary at this stage. Nonetheless, theeffort to improve knowledge of this complex subject is essential for those responsible fordesigning governance systems to cope with sustainable development challenges.

We hope that our study of this particular case study provided a useful first step as a

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platform for future scholarly work on the effectiveness of sustainable developmentdiplomacy.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Co-authors: Hans Hoogeveen and Patrick Verkooijen

1.1 The Crisis of Multiple CrisesSince sustainable development entered the international agenda in the mid-eighties,sustainable development governance (SDG) has evolved rapidly. The system we havetoday reflects both the successes and failures of this process. There is growingawareness that the present system of development is rapidly and irreversibly erodingall three pillars of sustainable development: economic, social and environmental; andnumerous international efforts have emerged to address these threats. The urgency,severity, complexity and global scale of the problems have outgrown the politicalinstitutions of governance, which are heavily constrained by competing interests of theparties, and by a set of operating principles that favors state interests over all othervalues. The international community has agreed that sustainable development shouldbe the road all nations should travel. Yet governments and institutions are not yetcapable of engaging in the diplomacy and creating the institutions of governance thatare required to achieve the goals of well being for all citizens of the world within asupportive natural environment, and an equitable economy using effective social andgovernmental institutions.

The term Sustainable Development Governance(SDG) refers to the sum oforganizations, policy instruments, financing mechanisms, rules, procedures, norms,that regulate the processes of sustainable development at the global, regional, national,and local level. Sustainable Development Diplomacy (SDD) is the tool, or the process,that is available to the international community to create an effective system of globalsustainable development governance. The current governance system’s highmaintenance needs, its internal redundancies and its inherent inefficiencies, havecombined to have the perverse effect of impeding the achievement of sustainabledevelopment worldwide (Najam et.al., 2006).

We acknowledge that the term crisis is often overused. However, the rapid rise ofmultiple, interconnected problems of major proportions defies a more modest name.The world in the beginning of the twenty-first century is faced with intensifyinginterconnected global and regional issues, such as political tension and uncertainty,economic and food crisis, climate change, water shortages, ecosystem disruptions,increasing social inequality and persistence poverty. The food riots in certain regions ofthe world in 2008 were manifestations of these trends that blur the boundaries betweenpolitical, economic, agricultural, energy, trade, climate change, technology and otherfactors. How to feed the estimated 9 billion people in 2050 is one of the biggestchallenges we face. The disjuncture between the global nature of the challenges and

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2

TRANSFORMING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT DIPLOMACY

the national centers of decision-making became more than ever clear (Weiss, 2009).

The rise in global temperatures may lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophicclimate change (IPCC, 2007). The loss of species from a host of human activities isoccurring at such a rate, that it is being called the sixth mass extinction by biologists(Wilson, 1988). Fisheries continue to collapse to the extent that three-fourths of allfisheries are at or beyond sustainable fishing limits, and coral reefs and mangroveforests that nurture marine life are dying (Wilkinson, 2008). Deadly air pollutiondominates the air of many urban areas impacting the livelihoods of people (Hajer, 1995).Deforestation has accelerated, and with the loss of forests, the multiple environmentalgoods and services they provide are disappearing and the life of many is being degraded(Humphreys, 2006). We appear to be confronted with a crisis of multiple crises: anenergy crisis, a food crisis, a climate change crisis, an ecological crisis and, more recently,also a financial crisis.

What is only now becoming apparent is that these individual large-scale crises areconnected in complex ways, and our traditional approach to managing global andinternational problems is proving insufficient to the task. Forests, we will argue, are atthe heart of sustainable development, and provide a useful lens for examining this newphenomenon of complexity and the need for a new approach for managing it. Forests aredisappearing through deliberate actions by individuals, corporations and bygovernments. Sometimes this is done to increase land for agriculture or urbanization,but more often the harvesting of timber, clearing and the burning of forests is done tomeet short-term economic gains (Chomitz, 2007).

The loss of forests is interconnected with many other issues in multiple ways. Forestsare cut for economic development, especially agricultural development, in order toaddress poverty alleviation. The macro-economic benefits are mostly less than the lossof environmental goods and services (Richards and Jenkins, 2007). Forests are also lostbecause of a changing climate and from acid rain and air pollution. Deforestation ofmangroves destroys the breeding grounds and nurseries for fish and other marineorganisms and exacerbates fisheries decline. The loss of forests accelerates biodiversityloss of not only plants, but of many animal species, and increases soil erosion andflooding (Thompson, 2009). Livelihoods are lost when forests are replaced with lessvaluable land use patterns. Despite claims to the contrary, deforestation in most casesdegrades human well-being, and retards development (World Bank, 2004).

To address the problem of forest loss and degradation requires a more comprehensivesystems approach that sees forests in all of their complexity. The traditional debate overwhether to protect or exploit forests is too simple a formulation of the problem. Forests,we will analyze in this thesis, are exemplars of the need for a transformation in SDD.The central role of forests in the sustainable development agenda makes them an idealcase with which to explore sustainable development diplomacy which includes issueidentification, international negotiations and global governance.This study analyzesthis broader issue of transformational change by examining forests and theirrelationship to the additional crises that the world is facing.

1.2 Historical Perspectives on Forests Historically, forests have had dual hold on human imagination; both feared and loved.Folklore from societies around the world reveal a complex human relationship withforests, which were sometimes considered “cursed” and harbored “evil”, while at othertimes provided “sanctuary” and resources for “survival”.

Folk stories from many cultures depict forests as dark, mysterious places where strangecreatures lurk and unexplainable things happen. Early European folk belief was filledwith demons, trolls, ogres and other mythical beasts that inhabited the forests, andmany epics tell of these fearsome and repulsive forest creatures. In the tradition ofLatin American mysticism, stories tell of strange, unexplainable things occurring in thedepths of the region’s tropical forests.

Early Europeans who came to the American forest found themselves in “a waste andhowling wilderness.” It was a dark forbidding place occupied by devils (Wigglesworth asquoted in Nash 1967: 36). Many saw it as their duty to God to replace the dark forestwith the light of civilization - presumably by cutting down trees. It was the mission ofmankind to have dominion over nature. Hence it is unsurprising that in both Northand South America, grants of land by governments required that the owner “improveit” by clearing of forest, a practice that continues in some countries to this day.

Forests are also depicted in folklore and religion as a source of life and sustenance. Morerecently, forests and nature have taken on a more positive quality as revealing the mindof the Creator, and hence is deserving of protection. Ancient Egyptian mythology depictsthe gods sitting in a sycamore fig; its fruits used to feed the blessed. The EgyptianStudy of the Dead goes on to say that twin sycamore figs stood at the eastern gate ofheaven. In some Eastern cultures, forests and wilderness were venerated as the symboland essence of the deity (Nash 1967). “In Japan the first religion, Shinto, was a formof nature worship that deified mountains, forests, storms, and torrents…” (Nash 1967:20).

Indigenous traditions around the world also have a dual perspective on forests, seeingforests both for as a source of resources and danger. On the Kii Peninsula in Japan,inhabitants rely on the forests for survival, but they also see danger in taking of the livesof plants and animals. They believed that when the rules of nature are infringed, tatari– “a curse or retribution in the form of illness, death, personal misfortune or some othercalamity” – occurred (Nash 1967: 28).

In Central Africa, indigenous peoples have lived successfully in the tropical rainforest

3

Introduction

“There was a quality of mystery about the wilderness, particularly at night,that triggered the imagination. To frightened eyes the limbs of trees becamegrotesque, leaping figures, and the wind sounded like a weird scream. Thewild forest seemed animated. Fantastic creatures of every description werethought to lurk in its depths. Whether propitiated with sacrifices as deitiesor regarded as devils, these forest beings were feared.” (Nash: 1967: 11).

for thousands of years. Some tribes are typically short in stature, and historically therehave been contrasting views of these people as “noble, egalitarian forest dwarfs or fierce,unruly savages who are embarrassing throwbacks to an earlier stage of humanevolution” (Bailey et.al., 1992: 204). Living in small, distinct ethnic groups, many tribesdepend on forest resources for their own subsistence as well as for goods to trade withnearby agricultural tribes. They fish in the rivers, they hunt antelope and monkeys, andthey gather nuts, fruits, and honey to supplement their diet.

Central Africa is far from the only region that had indigenous peoples occupy forestshistorically and still have them present today. In South America many tribes ofindigenous peoples live in the vast Amazon basin, in New Zealand the Maori tribes arestill present, and in India, tribes including the Nishi occupy Arunachal Pradesh andother parts of India. Like the African pygmies, many indigenous peoples depend onforests for food sustenance, wood, and building materials. Furthermore, populationsliving on the fringes of forests gather medicinal herbs, firewood, and such items tosupplement their agricultural commodities (Colchester, 2008).

The stark dualism between love and fear of forests that was present on and offthroughout history diminished as innovation and confidence evolved and allowedhumans to exercise more control over forests and their natural resources. In many partsof the world, man’s relationship with forests shifted from one that balanced fear andrespect to one that emphasized human domination over forests (Scott, 1998).

The Industrial Revolution of the late 18TH and early 19TH centuries brought new,greater demands of forest products for consumption, energy generation, andconstruction. As the demand for forest resources outpaced supply from Europeanresources, Britain, amongst other European countries, turned to other parts of theworld for these resources, including the United States and India. Timber from theseand other parts of the world were used to fuel the British industrial revolution alongwith coal, erect cities, and build their naval fleet. It also helped Britain build the largestnaval fleet in the world. In the United States, pioneers cleared forested lands foragricultural production and timber extraction, pushed by westward expansion and abooming population. Forests cover an estimated 28% less area today in the U.S. thanat the time of European settlement (FAO, 2007). During this period, forested land waslost to human consumption. Forest resources played a critical role in the developmentof the United States, Britain, Germany, and other European nations, fueling their riseas world powers. This period marked an important stage in the evolution of forests asa key policy issue – forests for development – a policy issue that would reemerge manydecades later in concerns of developing nations.

By the early 20TH century, forest resources across Europe, North America, and in otherparts of the world, were declining. Timber extraction, agricultural and infrastructureexpansion, population growth, recreational use, and increasing demands for forestanimal and plant resources, were all putting stress on tropical, temperate, and borealforests throughout the world (Geist and Lambin, 2002).


4

1.3 Forest DeclineHumans have been converting forested lands to other uses such as agricultural andurbanization since before the industrial revolution. The lands of Europe were beingcleared soon after the 11th century, and Europeans began clearing the Americas by the17th century with the greatest decreases occurring in the 19th century. Indigenouspeoples also managed some forests in the Americas prior to European settlementthrough the use of fire, but did relatively little clearing of forested lands. The recentlarge scale deforestation in Africa, Asia and Latin America has occurred mostly since themid-twentieth century. As can be seen in Figure 1.1, the decline in forest cover fromapproximately the year 1000 until 2006 is significant. Heightened political and societalinterest has led to the increase in monitoring of forest resources and deforestation rates.From 1990 to 2005, forests declined by 3%, resulting in a total area just under 4 billionhectares globally by 2005. While they compose roughly 30% of earth’s terrestrial landarea, deforestation continues. The current deforestation rate of 13 million hectares/yearis partially offset by tree plantings, and lands abandoned to forest recovery resulting ina net forest loss of 7.3 million hectares per year, or 20,000 hectares per day (FAO, 2007).

Figure 1.1 Change in global forest cover from approximately the year 1000 to 2005 (WorldBank, 2008)

The productive use of forests is dominated by wood production. Over 50% of forestswere designated for wood production in their management objectives (as of 2005), someof which was included in a ‘multiple purpose’ designation, and the countries with thelargest forested area grew the largest total stock for wood production (FAO, 2007). Theshift towards sourcing more wood from plantations rather than natural forests is seenby the increase in productive forest plantations by 2.5 million hectares from 2000 to

Introduction

5

2005 (FAO, 2005). Figure 1.2 shows the primary designated functions of forests as theywere in 2005 (FAO, 2007).

Figure 1.2 Designated primary functions of forests, 2005 (data from FAO, 2007)

Protection and conservation of biological diversity together are the primary forestfunction in 20% of the world’s forests. Furthermore, 4% of forests are used for socialservices, including recreation, education, and tourism. The area protected forconservation purposes was 32% greater in 2005 than in 1990 (FAO, 2007). This showsthe prominence that biodiversity conservation and valuing of forest resources havegained over time. As far as the indicators of biodiversity, the presence of primary orfrontier forests and the number of threatened or endangered species are the mostcommon indicators. While there is insufficient data globally to determine the numberof threatened or endangered species, tropical primary forests have the highestbiodiversity and can be used as a proxy. However, every year 6 million hectares ofprimary forests are lost or modified, and within the five years from 2000 to 2005, thecountries that converted the most were Indonesia with 13% loss, Mexico with 6%, PapuaNew Guinea with 5%, and Brazil with 4% (FAO, 2007).

Throughout the world, forty-three countries still have over half of their land forested(FAO, 2007). When global forests are aggregated, merely five countries hold over halfof the world’s forested area – the Russian Federation, Brazil, Canada, the U.S., andChina. There is considerable variation in forest policy throughout the world, especiallyconsidering the general trend toward devolution, shifting governance from the nationalto local level. Most forested lands remain in public hands; however, some countriesembarked on greater privatization. The State of the World’s Forests 2007 recognizedthat some regions are responding more effectively to halting deforestation than others,

6


balancing the environmental impact with economic gain and livelihoods impacts, buteach faces its own challenges (FAO, 2007).

Although Europe is the leader in sustainable forest management today with examplesof forests that have been managed productively for centuries, economic developmentand industrialization over several hundred years greatly depleted Europe’s forests. Aspopulation grew and farming methods changed, significant areas of forest were lost tolivestock grazing, swidden cultivation and clearance for permanent fields. Remainingareas were subject to intensive logging to meet the needs of local populations and forindustries such as shipbuilding, construction, charcoal production and mining. Onlyabout 0.24 % of Europe’s remaining 144 million hectares of forest is considered to bevirgin forest and only 1.8 per cent is classified as virgin forest or old growth forestremnants (Colchester, 1998). The European forestry sector, however, is declining on thewhole, and concerns have surfaced over how that effects climate change, especiallyprecipitation patterns in this and other parts of the world.

So, until very recently, deforestation made economic sense for most developed countries,and state policies and processes supported the land use changes from forest toagriculture and urban development to meet the needs of a growing population. Inseeking to help reduce deforestation in tropical forest nations, developed countries cantherefore be seen as asking developing countries to reject a high-deforestation (andconsequently high-carbon) growth path that they themselves have followed (EliaschReview, 2008).

North America still has abundant forest resources with forests covering 33% of the landarea. Forest area is constant in the U.S. and Canada, and while Mexico loses about0.5% per year, the rate of depletion is decreasing. Canada and the U.S. have a strongforest industry; including Mexico, the region accounts for 40% of the world’s woodremovals. The rate of removal is declining in the U.S., the largest producer, but growingdemand caused it to shift from a net exporter of forest products to a net importer. Inregards to sustainable forest management, there are progressive policies that engageboth private sector use and public controls in all three countries (FAO, 2007).

Asia and the Pacific is a mixed story, characterized primarily by rapid economic growth.Domestic and international demand for timber and for palm oil, minerals, oil and gasis leading to significant deforestation in some countries and extensive illegal logging isoccurring in others. China on the other hand is planting large forest plantations and hasactually increased its forested area since 2000. Overall, China and a few other countriesfollowing the same strategy tip the overall rate of forest change to a net positive numberfor the region (FAO, 2007).

Not all regions of the world are moving in this direction, however. From 1990 to 2005,deforestation removed 19% of forest cover in Central America and 7% in South America.However, Caribbean nations have increased their forests by 11%. Latin America with54% of the world’s primary forests and high biodiversity, has seen its forests decline inarea due to a range of underlying causes. The high conversion rate of forested land toagriculture is the leading cause of deforestation for the region as a whole. The regioncomposes only 7% of the global forest sector’s value, even though it covers over 20% of

7

Introduction

global forest area, partly because Central America and the Caribbean use the majorityof their wood removals for fuel. Several governments are making greater efforts toconserve land and strengthen institutions to manage forests more sustainably, althoughfinding financial resources is a constraining factor (FAO, 2007).

Africa joins Latin America as the regions with the highest rates of forest depletion.Africa lost more than 9% of its forests from 1990 to 2005. Conflict and rampantwildfires ravage the land, and fuel wood collection has increased steadily since 1990.While national political actions have designated more conservation areas, manygovernments lack the resources to protect these areas once they are designated.

A summary of total forested areas and trends by region is provided in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 Global forest and percentage cover, 2005, and net changes by sub-region, 2000-2005Note: Percentages represent the proportion of remaining forest area lost and/or gained each year during therespective period. Source: CPF, 2008

Forest area % of Net change, 2000–05RReeggiioonn//ssuubb--rreeggiioonn ((’’000000 llaanndd

hheeccttoorreess aarreeaa(‘000

hectores) %

Eastern and Southern Africa 226 534 27.8 -1 702 -0.74

Northern Africa 131 048 8.6 -982 -0.73

Western and Central Africa 227 829 44.1 -1 356 -0.48

Total Africa 635 412 21.4 -4 040 -0.62

East Asia 244 862 21.3 3 840 1.65

South and Southeast Asia 283 127 33.4 -2 851 -0.98

Western and Central Asia 43 588 4 14 0.03

Total Asia 571 577 18.5 1 003 0.18

Total Europe 1 001 394 44.3 661 0.07

Caribbean 5 974 26.1 54 0.92

Central America 22 411 43.9 -285 -1.23

North America 677 464 32.7 -101 -0.01

Total North and CentralAmerica 705 849 32.9 -333 -0.05

Total Oceania 206 254 24.3 -356 -0.17

Total South America 831 540 47.7 -4 251 -0.50

World 3 952 025 30.3 -7 317 -0.18

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1.4 Multiple Dimensions of ForestsForests can be interpreted in multiple dimensions: economic, social-cultural andecological. Forests contribute to the livelihoods of more than 1.6 billion people. Forestsand the forest products industry are a source of economic growth and employment.Worldwide, forest industries provide employment (both formal and informal) forapproximately 50 million people (World Bank, 2004).

Forests are home to at least 80 percent of the world’s remaining terrestrial biodiversityand are a major carbon sink regulating global climate change. Forests also help tomaintain the fertility of the soil, protect watersheds, and reduce the risk of naturaldisasters, such as floods and landslides (World Bank, 2008). Commercial markets rarelycapture the full value of these ecosystem services, and even if they do recognize that theservices exist, the difficulties associated with quantification make them hard to include(PROFOR, 2007). Acknowledging the inherent complexity of valuation, one studyattempted to quantify the economic value of the world’s ecosystem services. Itestimated the values for these services per unit area depending on the biome. Then itmultiplied that number by the total area of each biome, and then summed over allservices and biomes. It found the global annual average of ecosystem services to beUS$11 – 54 trillion, with an average of US$ 33 trillion (in 1994 US$). Broken down intomarine and terrestrial ecosystems, it analyzed nine terrestrial biomes, one of which wasforests. Forests alone accounted for US$4.7 trillion per year. For the 17 ecosystemservices identified, some benefits are realized indirectly, such as biological control ofpests, transient populations, or genetic resources, while other benefits are obtainedmore directly from recreation or disturbance regulation, including protection fromfloods and droughts. Forests produce organic matter that forms soil over time, andtrees anchor the soil and help with control of erosion and sediment retention.Ecosystem services cover a broad range, and without forests and these services, the“economies of the Earth would grind to a halt” (Constanza, 1997: 253).

9

Introduction

Figure 1.3 presents a stylized view of forests, land use, and their link to climate change.

Figure 1.3 Forests in a land- use continuumSource: Blaser and Robledo 2008.

1.5 Issues Confronting ForestsWhile forests are vital to human societies, they are also exposed to a range ofanthropogenic challenges to continue to survive. As humans use forests and theirproducts, they potentially impact natural processes. Forests adapt to some changes,but other stresses are too rapid or difficult to overcome.

While this study emphasizes the complexity of forest linkages and the implications forglobal forest governance and its diplomacy, not about the causes of deforestation andforest degradation, it is important to have a firm grasp on the latter. The breadth of thecauses underscores the complexity of the problem and has significant implications forour analysis and the way forward. A range of cultural, social, economic, and politicalfactors result in differences and a unique combination of challenges for each forest.Distinct views on forests, pressures, and incentives to either deforest or protect themresult in different patterns region to region, and even within regions.

Figure 1.4 aggregates the direct causes of changes in forest area according to developingcountry region. It is clear that there is no single cause for deforestation, and that theunderlying causes vary considerably among regions (FAO, 2005).

10


Figure 1.4 Direct causes of changes in forest area, by region, 1990–2000Source: FAO, 2005

Illustrated in a different manner, the forest transition theory describes the aggregateimpact of drivers of deforestation as a sequence over time and suggests that large areasof forests will be lost unless there are policy interventions. The curve starts with a setof triggers that initiate deforestation, such as road construction, and then the effect isamplified by reinforcing loops. This positive feedback is usually attributable topopulation or economic growth in the area that causes agriculture and developmentand which can be facilitated by such indirect factors as commodity prices. The finalstage on the curve is where stabilizing loops create downward pressure on agriculturalrent, stemming from better employment opportunities in cities or lower commodityprices. At the same time, scarcity of forest resources can also lead to an increase inforest rents, which encourages better forest management. While there are certainlymany variations, the forest transition curve presents a common progression ofdeforestation driven by economic development (Eliasch Review, 2008).

11

Introduction

Figure 1.5 Forest transition curveSource: Eliasch Review, 2008

On top of anthropogenic pressures, a natural phenomenon that will confront all forestsin upcoming years, and that is already impacting many forests today, is climate change(IUFRO, 2009). As will be examined in more detail in chapter 3, changing precipitationand temperature patterns are forcing trees, plants, and organisms to adapt to newconditions. The timing of flowering for plants and animal lifecycles are often triggeredby temperature; however temperature changes can disrupt the synchronizationbetween certain plants and organisms that are dependent upon each other. Additionally,some animals and plants are migrating northward and upward in elevation, changingecosystem composition. Climate change presents a universal challenge facing forests,although it will be manifested differently in each location. The mountain pine beetleof western North America shows the devastation that can be caused by large-scaleoutbreaks that are often characteristic of warmer winters. A recent outbreak, whichstarted in 1994 and accelerated since 2000, has already destroyed over 170 million m3of timber (CPF, 2008).

1.6 Governance Up until the 1990s, forests were predominantly governed on the national scale.Governments typically viewed forests as natural resources to be used for nationaldevelopment. The wide variety of viewpoints on forests and issues faced has led todiverse approaches to governance. Policies were often implemented to strategically useforested areas for economic growth through logging, agriculture, and mineral or oilextraction.

At times, the multiplicity of actors has led to the question of what is the most effectivescale for forest governance. Given the pressures that occur locally the question occurswhether governance should be decentralized to the local level. One argument suggeststhat local or regional enforcement could more effectively combat illegal activities since


12

it is arguably more attuned with the circumstances, actors, and the landscape of aspecific location (Christy et.al., 2007). At the same time, there are global impacts thatresult from local forest land-use decisions. People beyond the forest boundaries oroutside of national borders need many of the vital ecosystem services provided byforests. That is in part why the global community became concerned with deforestationand came together to discuss the issue. The international level adds another layer ofcomplexity and brings in new and additional actors. New perspectives and culturalunderstandings add competing rationalities to the decision-making process (Litfin,1994). The rise of new modes governance in forest-related practice highlights theinfluence of discourses between societal, economic and state actors as well as theinfluence of expertise as important sources of knowledge for political actors and theirdecisions (Boecher et.al., 2009). Globalization and economic integration connect theworld and blur state lines more than was the case historically (Stiglitz, 2002).

In other words, the issue of scale is not as simple as determining whether to addressforest issues on the local, national, or global level. The question is whether the scale ofthe causes of deforestation should determine the scale of governance. Another approachto determine the scale of governance could be to examine the population impacted byforest policy. Under this assumption, should local populations that are impacted bychanges in hydrological services take precedence or the international community thatis affected by the loss in biodiversity from deforestation? Or perhaps rather thandetermine the scale of governance by the scale of the causal factors or the peopleaffected by deforestation, the effectiveness of each scale of governance could be selectedas the criterion. Beyond the scale on which decision-making occurs, there is the scaleat which policy implementation and enforcement are pursued.

In this thesis we take as point of analytical departure the notion that scale matters.Governance on each scale has strengths and weaknesses in each of these deforestationcausal factors depending on the issues addressed, actors, and instruments forsustainable forest management.

Due to the vast differences in the ways that people view forests, the ways that theygovern those resources has varied widely as well. We will examine in our study how theissues have grown in complexity and the actors and instruments of governancemultiplied. We will also analyze how the system of global forest governance (GFG) hasbegun to reflect some of the challenges facing global governance on a broader scale.Adding to the national governments that first had the responsibility for forestgovernance, intergovernmental organizations, corporations, community groups, andacademia are also actors in the current system of forest governance. With differentassociations and viewpoints on forests, there are more competing claims and voices inthe governing process. For purposes of this study, the term “global governance” refersto “the sum of efforts to manage global processes in the absence of a global government”(Najam et al, 2006). Thus, global governance includes organizations, policy instruments,financing mechanisms, rules, procedures and norms that regulate the global system.

Many commentators have stated that global governance in general has become muchmore complex over the past 30 years (Najam et.al., 2004). This complexity is a resultof the interaction and negotiation processes between different actors, whose resources

Introduction

13

are indispensable for a joint undertaking (Teisman, 2000). The governance of certainissues, which once seemed precise, is no longer so. In addition to global forestgovernance, on which we will focus this study, this can be seen in other arenas, such astrade, development, environment, and intellectual property. While the GeneralAgreement on Tariffs and Trade focused on lowering tariff rates on goods tradedbetween countries, its successor, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and manyregional and bilateral trade agreements has incorporated regulations on trade inservices, foreign investment, and intellectual property rights, not to mention labor andthe environment. There does not appear to be any overarching system within WTO orother trade regimes that deals with trade in timber, pulp or other forest products thatwere acquired in violation of either national laws or international treaties. This is aserious problem that needs to be addressed. The United Nations DevelopmentProgramme (UNDP) was formed to address issues of democratic governance andpoverty reduction, and today it dabbles in a much broader range of issues includingarms proliferation, environmental protection and energy. Likewise, bilateralinvestment treaties formerly acted as the primary instrument for countries to protecttheir companies overseas. Since the mid-1990s, however, investment provisions havebegun to be incorporated as a natural part of trade agreements.

Just as the issues have diversified, so have actors and the instruments of globalgovernance. States historically acted primarily to regulate the use of forest resources,a role they played in many arenas. Globally, however, we have moved away from statesbeing the only actors on the international stage (Porter et.al., 2000). Intergovernmentalorganizations, international and national civil society organizations, and multinationalcorporations, academia, and public concern and action have stepped in to play a role inglobal governance as well. Each of those actors bring with them different goals and adiversity of interests. Different actors have made room for different instruments ofgovernance – from enforceable international agreements with dispute resolutionsystems, to purchase and sale agreements recording transnational businesstransactions. This multiplicity of governance actors must cope, amongst others, with themultiple voices of millions of local decision makers, the chaos of war and domesticconflict and the destruction brought by organized crime and corruption. Against thisbackground of the development of global governance more broadly we conduct ouranalysis of the case study on the system of global forest governance and its diplomacy.

1.7 Research QuestionsThis study builds on the premise that the goal of the international community has beento create an effective system of global sustainable development governance, includingeffective forest governance. Diplomacy is the tool, or the process, that is available tothe international community to do so. In this study we will analyze why theinternational community has not succeeded in creating effective systems of global forestgovernance. Governance systems are assumed to be complex by definition (Hoogeveenet.al., 2008, Teisman et.al., 2008). These processes are the coordinated actions of publicand private actors around collective issues (Boons et.al., 2008). We accept as a basicassumption that due to the diversity of issues, actors and instruments, the complexity


14

of global governance, and, in particular, global forest governance has increased.Different issues require different solutions. Actors come with various goals andinterests, and instruments of governance bind actors to varying degrees and in diverseways. Although complexity is not, in and of itself, a negative characteristic, it maycreate a set of challenges for the system of global forest governance, making it, amongstothers, more difficult to accomplish a coherent set of goals on forests. The question iswhether the system of global forest governance is equipped to address this complexityand if not, how this complexity should be addressed. In this, we claim that a reductionistapproach exclusively focusing on the parts of the system does not generate anunderstanding of the system as a whole.

This study examines the principal challenges of global forest governance and itsdiplomacy. The goal is to expand our understanding of the system of global forestgovernance and its underlying patterns. It builds on the working assumption that a defacto “system” of global forest governance already exists. In this, we define a system asthe emerging interactions between the elements of the system that generate theoutcome of governance processes (Boons et.al., 2008). We accept that the de facto systemis neither neat nor simple and works in a rather non-linear, non-hierarchical, andintertwined fashion (Najam et.al., 2004). We accept that complex governance systems,such as our case study, must be analyzed by studying their parts as well as the emergentpatterns that result from their coevolution (Teisman et.al, 2008: 5). Within thesecomplex systems, processes evolve through interactions between their constitutingelements, actors and content. Our point of analytical departure starts from theempirical observation that governance systems and networks are often in states ofchange which make them difficult to analyze, let alone manage.

The overarching research question is what we can learn about how the system of thediplomacy of global forest governance evolves by analyzing the components of thesystem in an integrated way. Is the current multi-dimensional process of sustainabledevelopment governance and its diplomacy evolving in a manner that it can achieve theagreed goals, objectives and targets, such as those agreed within the realm of globalforest governance? Based on this research we will demonstrate that a type of newdiplomacy is required to create a more effective system of global sustainabledevelopment governance, including global forest governance.

The search for an answer to this question raises a series of more focused questionsaround three interrelated focal areas encompassing the system of global forestgovernance: issues, actors and institutions and policy instrumentation. These questionsare embedded into the broader debate on what the drivers of societal change are ondecision-making of predominantly centralized, top-down and vertical steering processesat the global level.

Single issue management versus issue linkages – This research aspect examinesthe influence of fragmentation among policies that affect forests. Forests are dealt within conjunction with a series of other issues, such as climate, biodiversity, trade,agriculture, development and local property rights. Because of the complexity andinterconnectivity of issues related to forests, different actors tend to conceive of forestsin relation to their own interests and narrow perspectives. The complexity challenges

Introduction

15

of the current system of global forest governance often takes a “siloed” view of forestissues. Simplification does not work when adjustments in one area create imbalances inothers. The question is how to manage this complexity, rather than eliminate it, andhow to imply a coherent approach to the broad ranging issues therein.

Actor Complexity – This research seeks to make sense of the complexity of the actorsin the system of global forest governance. GFG involves numerous types of actors, fromglobal multilateral institutions to national governments to village councils, and fromlarge international timber companies to small producers dependent on forest productsfor their livelihoods, and all manner of civil society organizations (CSOs) at every level.Each of these types of actors has very different, and often contradictory, interests andpriorities in relation to forests. None of these actors have the right or the capability tounilaterally set global forest policy.

The question is not only to demonstrate the variety of actors involved in global forestgovernance, but also to highlight the complications that arise because of the varietyand how those complications impact the efficacy of global forest governance. In orderto do so we attempt to make sense of and deal with this complexity and identify criticaldeterminants for making the system more effective.

Forest Policy Instrumentation – The multiplicity of issues and actors related toforests has led to myriad governance mechanisms and diverse approaches to theimplementation and enforcement of sustainable forest management. Political decisionsare being negotiated in new arenas, between state and non-state actors, and new modesof governance are developed which depart from conventional hierarchical top-downregulation using regulations and directives. More than ever the question arises aroundthe effective scale of the governance response, including the role and impact of thesubsidiarity principle. This research aspect analyzes how the complex sets ofinstruments and approaches within the system of global forest governance interact andhow this interaction impacts the effectiveness of the system and its efficiency.

The emphasis of this study is to identify the factors that make the system of globalforest governance and its diplomacy more or less effective as mechanisms for alteringthe behavior of actors in international society and, in the process, for solving oralleviating a variety of problems, including through addressing the underlying causesof deforestation and degradation.

Although we are aware of the broader scholarly debate, we accept as the relevant testfor discerning an impact of this type is whether the system affects the management ofthe problem that motivated its creation by inducing changes in the behavior of statesand other actors whose behavior is directly involved in the relevant behavioral complex.Our working assumption is that a system of global forest governance that channelsbehavior in such a way as to eliminate or substantially ameliorate the problem that ledto its creation is an effective system. A system that has marginal behavioral impact, bycontrast, is an ineffective system. This assumption implies, of course, that the conceptof effectiveness as applied to the system of global forest governance defines a continuousvariable. The system can range along a continuum from ineffectual arrangements,which wind up as dead letters, to highly effective arrangements, which produce quick

16


17

Introduction

and decisive solutions to the problem at hand (Young, 1994).

We acknowledge that there is no simple test available to gauge the proportion of thevariance that can be explained by the presence and operation of the factors thatdetermine the system of global forest governance. We also accept that determinants forsuccess are obscured by numerous connections with other elements. That said, however,analytical tools do exist that are useful in constructing persuasive arguments about theworking of the system of global forest governance.

In our study we claim that the case study we have chosen for in-depth study in ouranalysis – the system of the diplomacy of global forest governance – has been in placelong enough to compile track records that can be evaluated systematically. A centralcomponent of the case study, then, consists of a causal narrative that details the effectsproduced by the system of global forest governance and seeks to identify causalconnections between the relevant behavior and the operation of the system. Causalitywill not be interpreted in this study in the pure positivist sense but much more forpatterns within the complex system of global forest governance and the resultingdynamics.

This study makes use of an inductive approach seeking to infer a set of theoreticalderived hypotheses against evidence distilled from our case study on the developmentof the system of global forest governance and its effectiveness. Subsequently, based onthe evidence from our analysis and in response to the research questions we provide atentative validation of the hypotheses through a deductive approach. We are concernedwith identifying behavioral pathways and exploring how they work in practice ratherthan with establishing the relative significance of different pathways in some globalsense. Nonetheless, we acknowledge that we cannot ignore the question of the extentto which our case study is representative of some larger domain within the broader fieldof sustainable development diplomacy. We believe our case study is sufficiently diverseto provide insights into the nature of the various behavioral mechanisms and theconditions under which they operate relevant for the broader system of sustainabledevelopment governance and diplomacy. Based on our practical experience in thegovernance and diplomacy of a range of other complex global public good issues, suchas biodiversity, fisheries, agriculture, and climate change, we expect our findings haverelevance in these domains as well. From a theoretical perspective future research onother case studies within the domain of sustainable development should be developedas vehicles for probing the relevance of our model to actual behavior governed by thebroader system of sustainable development diplomacy.

1.8 Study OutlineThe challenges global forest governance and diplomacy face require greater examinationin order to move forward. Global forests negotiations have proceeded over the past fewdecades, and throughout this time knowledgeable observers and practitioners believedthat a legally-binding agreement would be impossible to achieve because of the vastgeopolitical interests and the initial positions of the negotiating parties were so widelydivergent. The split between developed and developing countries, the debate on aformal treaty or a non-legally binding treaty, and the disagreement over a funding

mechanism polarized the negotiations. Finally, after many years of disagreement,UNFF-7 reached a successful agreement with the adoption of the global forestinstrument (Ban Ki Moon, 2009).

This study focuses on the system of global forest governance and diplomacy, working onthe premise that the processes we use to negotiate global agreements are as importantas the technical capabilities and the scientific understanding that the negotiators bringto the bargaining table.

In sum, this study seeks to do three things.

First, it analyzes the politics, economics and policy response to global deforestation andforest degradation over the past 30 years. It describes the need for a new global systemto address forest loss and it introduces the complex and fragmented institutionalconfiguration of international forest policy. A whole array of forest-relatedorganizations, instruments and institutions that have developed over recent decadeswill be analyzed of which the sum epitomizes a subset of an emergent system of globalsustainable development governance and diplomacy.

Second, it analyzes and explains the driving social and economic forces in determiningsuccess and failure in efforts to form the international instrument on all types of forestsand in shaping the substantive content of it. The forest negotiations will be used as acase study to examine the strengths and shortcomings of the existing environmentaltreaty-making system and the scholarly work analyzing this system.

Third, it attempts to identify lessons learned and to develop a range ofrecommendations building upon the analysis of international forest diplomacy aimed atovercoming the weaknesses of international environmental negotiations whilecapitalizing on the lessons learned and best practices of UNFF (Maini, 2004).

Acknowledging the existing system As a starting point, we recognize the diversification of actors, issues, and instrumentsin global governance gets us to our point of analytical departure: that a de facto“system” of global governance already exists. And it exists in a plethora of internationalarenas and fields, of which forests is only one. In the arena of trade, governance occursthrough multilateral negotiations and agreements under the umbrella of the WTO(Najam.et.al., 2006). Bilateral and regional negotiations take place outside the WTO toform trade alliances that go deeper and broader than is feasible on the multilateralstage. States negotiate with foreign companies to encourage trade and investment.Private multinational companies engage in a governance role by entering into contractswith each other, supplying goods and services all over the world. In recent years, civilsociety organizations (CSOs) have begun to play a larger role by informing the processof trade negotiations and international trade relationships (Wapner, 1996). This wasmade evident at the 1999 World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle, whereinternational CSOs put significant pressure on corporations for responsibility in laborand environmental practices.

In the arena of environmental protection, environmental standards have formed

TRANSFORMING INTRODUCTION

18

19

Introduction

through specific environmental organizations, more general related organizations suchas the UNDP and even the WTO. Local non-state civil society and private actors havehad probably the largest impact on environmental governance by generating agendas,creating knowledge, and monitoring intelligence on the state of global environmentalgovernance (Banuri and Najam, 2002). More generally, public concern and action haveshaped global environmental governance by triggering domestic political pressurewhich, in turn, can dictate the behavior of international organizations. Consumeractivism in the form of product boycotts, product preference, and others can act as defacto standard setting (Najam et.al., 2004).

By acknowledging the existing system, we claim that reform of the system cannot failto take into consideration this existing structure of governance. This is particularlyimportant in the arena of global forest governance, where issues, actors, andinstruments have been around for decades, and in some cases, for centuries. Just likethe diverse arenas of trade, intellectual property, and environmental protection, asglobal forest governance has evolved, epistemic communities have developed around it.There are communities of loggers and scientific foresters, of multinational lumbercompanies, of forest dwellers, of policy analysts and negotiators, and of environmentalactivists, among many others. And each of these communities contributes to globalforest governance by bringing its own needs, goals, and history. The de facto system ofglobal forest governance is made up of various issues, a mosaic of actors, and diverseinstruments that govern how forests are used, treated, and sustained. As we moveforward to suggest reforms to global forest governance based on our analysis of criticaldeterminants for an effective system, we will build upon the current system as it hasevolved. Beginning from scratch, we accept, is not an option. But acknowledging theexisting system also forces us to deal with challenges that face global forest governance,some of which are unique to the forest arena, while others confront all globalgovernance.

To fully establish the base understanding of the de facto system of global forestgovernance, Chapter 2 lays out the groundwork. Global forest governance is deeplyintegrated with sustainable development governance, so this chapter sets out to describethe evolving concept of sustainable development governance and analyzes thechallenges of the emergent sustainable development governance system. Building uponthis and using a similar framework, we then focus on global forest governance and itsdiplomacy. First we explain its progression thus far and how the dominant ideas andpolicy actions have evolved since the 1980s. Then, we turn to the overarchingchallenges the system of global forest governance faces.

The main thrust of the study analyzes global forest governance along three interrelateddomains: according to issues, actors, and instruments. Through Chapter 3, the issue-linkages between forests and other sectors are identified. Several sectors interact withand influence forests, and yet view forests through their issue-specific lenses ratherthan as an integrated system. On the reverse side, it is difficult for global forestgovernance to effectively govern forests without understanding how other sectorsalready are dealing with them.

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Chapter 4 moves into an analysis of the actors within the system of global forestgovernance. It points out nuanced distinctions within three main types of actors: stateactors, market actors, and civil society actors. Trying not to oversimplify, but rather tounderstand the complexity, this chapter looks at how the actors interact and affectglobal forest governance.

Chapter 5 keeps building and dissects the instruments used for global forest governance.A variety of tools have been used over the years, so the chapter begins by reviewing thetrends and taking stock of the available instruments. Then, it turns to the constraintsfor effective implementation and how to deal with them. Finally, the chapter pointsout the correlations to negotiations and distills the complexity of implementation.

Chapter 6 provides an overview of our principal findings in response to the researchquestions about sustainable development diplomacy and global forest diplomacy inparticular and makes recommendations for global forest governance that are derivedfrom our research presented in the first five chapters. It returns to the overarchingresearch questions, setting forth the overall conclusions of the study and discussingthe implications of these findings for future research on the effectiveness for the systemof global forest governance and sustainable development diplomacy more broadly.

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Chapter 2

The Emergent System of Global Forest Governance and its Challenges

Lead author: Hans Hoogeveen; Co-author: Patrick Verkooijen

2.1 IntroductionAs stated in the first chapter, we accept Sustainable Development Governance as thesum of organizations, policy instruments, financing mechanisms, rules, procedures, andnorms that regulate the processes that determine sustainable development at the global,national, and local level. Against this background, we define Global Forest Governance(GFG) as a subset of the broader sustainable development agenda. The development ofthe GFG is highly interlinked with and related to the development of the encompassingsystem of global SDD. We take as our point of analytical departure that GFG is not onlya cornerstone of sustainable development, but that to understand the complexities,challenges and nuances of GFG it has to be placed within the evolving concept ofsustainable development.

Since forest issues entered the international agenda in the early 1980s, global forestpolitics and policies have been developing rapidly (Humphreys, 2006). The GFG systemwe have today may reflect both the successes and failures of this process. On the onehand, there is a high awareness of threats to forests and numerous efforts have emergedto address them globally. However, at the same time—and ironically partly because ofthe rather spectacular growth in awareness and initiatives— the GFG system may haveoutgrown its original design and intent in terms of addressing the problems and societalgoals that led to its creation.

Compared to three decades ago, even though the GFG system, as we will analyze in thisthesis, has achieved much in the way of new instruments, more money, and a moreparticipatory and active system than anyone anticipated, deforestation and forestdegradation continues. Indeed, because we know so much more about the forestconditions and processes, we also know more about what is not going well with theforests worldwide. Slash and burn agriculture, conversion to plantations, and climatechange are just a few of the many challenges forests face (FAO, 2009).

We accept as our basic assumption that the effectiveness of SDD will ultimately dependon its simultaneous implementation at both the global and domestic levels. Thisassumption also applies for GFG. National implementation is the ultimate indicatorboth to efficacy of the GFG system and to meaningful actions on the ground (Young,1994). However, within the context of our study, and for the purpose of this chapter, wewill focus principally on the global and institutional aspects of GFG, including effortsto create the support for domestic implementation, but not including the considerable


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challenges of domestic implementation. That is a crucial issue as well, and one worthseriously studying, but it lies beyond the scope of our study.

Another important consideration of this chapter is that GFG, including its evolution,cannot be fully understood – let alone lead to meaningful recommendations to overcomeits challenges – without having a more textured understanding of the system of SDD.SDD provides the framework and context in which GFG will be scrutinized throughoutthe remainder of this study.

This chapter seeks to do three things. The first section sets the stage by describing theevolving concept of SDD and analyzing the challenges of the emergent system of SDD.We approach this diagnosis with the goal of identifying the extent of the challenge andbuilding a base understanding that we can use to explore GFG. Second, we specificallyexamine the system of GFGD and the particular challenges it faces. In doing so weexamine how and when forests emerged on the international policy agenda. Finally, thechapter concludes by identifying the overriding challenges for GFG.

2.2 The Emergent System of Sustainable Development GovernanceSince the 1960s and 1970s global environmental threats have attained a prominentposition on the international agenda (Haas et al., 1993). An important contribution tothis emerging agenda was the Limits to Growth, a study by the Club of Rome publishedin 1972 that challenged the neoclassical paradigm and assumptions of classicaleconomics. Based on applied global-systems computer modeling, different scenarios andtrends were analyzed predicting different trajectories for population dynamics,economic growth, and natural resources, which accelerated the emergence ofenvironmental concerns on the international scale (Meadows et al., 1972).

By the 1980s, “sustainable development” was emerging as the catchword of analternative paradigm encompassing both environmental considerations as well asdevelopment objectives1. The first public use of the term “sustainable development”was probably in 1980, when it appeared in the World Conservation Strategy (WCS), adocument prepared by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature andNatural Resources (IUCN) (Humphreys, 1996). The WCS looked at sustainabledevelopment as the integration of conservation and development to ensure thatmodifications to the planet do indeed secure the survival and well-being of all people(IUCN 1980). The term “sustainable development” was popularized and refined in 1987by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), which is betterknown as the Brundtland Report after the commission’s chair. Its report, Our CommonFuture (WCED, 1987), brought the term sustainable development to the forefront ofinternational discourse and policymaking. The Brundtland Commission’s discussion ofsustainable development emphasized global interdependence, the need to considerfuture generations, the need to meet the needs of the world’s poor, and the need toprotect the environment. 1The term sustainable appears as early as 1905 when Gifford Pinchot used it in describing “sustainable yield” as acriterion for harvesting timber on a long term continual basis. The term was also used later to connote a level at whichfish might be continuously taken without diminishing the annual amount that could be caught.


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Some commentators have argued that the term sustainable development is oxymoronic,or so general as to be meaningless. Others followed the approach of the Brundtlandt re-port and accepted that sustainable development may best be viewed as a process ratherthan as a state to be achieved – a process that is not necessarily the same for all coun-tries, but that is founded on informed public input from all through a transparentprocess that uses integrating tools such as sustainable development impact indicators,and natural resource accounting (Conca and Dabelko 2004).

The Brundtland report itself does not elaborate what is meant by the harmonioustreatment of the environment or when human activities will result in unacceptabledamage to the environment. The fact that divergent responses are possible to thesequestions is evident from the differing measures used to determine the yardstick. As aconsequence, the room the Brundtland report leaves for interpretation has made itpossible for deeply-rooted differences in interpretation to surface (WRR, 1994).

Perhaps the most lasting accomplishment of the Brundtland Commission was to thrustthe concept of sustainable development into the mainstream of world debate (Sitarz,1993). The Brundtland Report described sustainable development as development that“meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of futuregenerations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987: 43). To meet this condition, theenvironment, the economy and society must all be considered in an integrated manner.The Bruntland formulation asserts that the earth’s natural systems have finitecapabilities to support human production and consumption, and that eliminatingpoverty is the surest way to protect environmental quality. The concept also assumes theneed for greater equity, not only between wealthy and poor nations, but also withinsocieties and between generations (WCED, 1987).

The concept of sustainable development was immediately seen by many as the onlyrational way to confront the interrelated problems of environmental destruction andessential economic development (Humphreys, 1996). However, the differences indefinitions and elaborations make it clear that sustainable development is not anobjective feature of a process. Sustainable development is a two-sided relationship asboth the well-being of mankind and society and that of environment play a role inevaluating those activities. Social well-being can be measured in terms of the extent towhich needs are satisfied of present and future generations and the well-being of theenvironment in terms of the extent to which environmental functions and assets are leftunharmed (WRR, 1994).

As many reports have suggested, the consequences of the types of production andconsumption patterns that the developed countries enjoy can be detrimental to theinterests of future generations. Yet over two decades after the concept was enunciated,developing countries of the world are also racing forward to achieve such production andconsumption for their own development, and as a means of eradicating poverty.Underscoring the urgency of the situation and the challenges at hand, a leading Dutchstudy of the Scientific Council for Government Policy concluded that:

“The fear was that if things go on as they are, an untenable situation will arise andthat people will not only degrade the physical environment by their actions but,

ultimately, also threaten human existence itself. That amenability manifests itself insuch ways as the wasteful use of finite raw materials, the utilization of naturalresources in excess of their regenerative capacity and damage from human action tothe conditions for existence of all manner of plant and animal species” (WRR, 1994).

In December of 1989, the General Assembly of the United Nations confronted thesedaunting challenges. The urgency of the problems of development and environmentprompted the nations of the world to call for an unprecedented meeting – a meeting ofall the nations on Earth – an Earth Summit. Resolution 44/228 expressed concern at the“continuing deterioration of the …global life-support systems” (UNGA, 1989). Itrecognized the global character of environmental problems and identified unsustainablepatterns of production and consumption, particularly in developed countries, as thecause of much of that deterioration (Elliott, 1998). The resolution identified a numberof major environmental concerns that jeopardize environmentally sound andsustainable development in all countries – protection of the atmosphere, land resources,combating deforestation, biological diversity, and issues relating to poverty and humanhealth conditions (UNGA, 1989).

The scope of attendance at the Earth Summit clearly defined the importance of its task.This historic meeting was the largest gathering of heads of state in the history ofinternational diplomacy. On June 13, 1992, nearly 100 world leaders met around a singletable at what was formally called the UN Conference on the Environment andDevelopment (UNCED).

In four pre-conference sessions by the Preparatory Committee of the Earth Summit, thecentral tenets of a coordinated global approach were formulated. The major output ofUNCED was a non-binding agreement called Agenda 21, which is a global plan of actionto achieve more sustainable societies. The Conference also produced two non-bindingsets of principles – the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and theStatement of Forest Principles – that helped create norms and expectations.Furthermore, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and theConvention on Biological Diversity (CBD) were opened for signature at the EarthSummit. The UNCED reports were submitted to the 47th session of the GeneralAssembly at the end of 1992, which endorsed the Rio Declaration, Agenda 21, and theStatement of Forest Principles. Furthermore, it established a standing agenda item onthe implementation of decisions and recommendations of the UNCED and decided toconvene a special session for the purposes of an overall review of Agenda 21 not laterthan 1997 (Doulman, 1995).

Agenda 21 is, like the Rio Declaration, a non-binding agreement and sets out a detailedplan of action for implementing the principles of the Declaration and for contributingto sustainable development (UNCED, 1992). It has 40 chapters of which Chapter 11exclusively focuses on forests (see Chapter 5 for a more detailed account on this matter)(UN, 1992).

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Figure 2.1 Three Pillars of Sustainable Development

After UNCED, global sustainable development politics involved increasing interactionsamong states and non-state actors that transcended a given region regardinginternational decisions that affect the three pillars of sustainable development: people,planet, profit (Rogers et.al., 2006), as can be seen in Figure 2.1. Since then, much ofthe international efforts have focused on efforts to negotiate multilateral agreementsfor cooperation to protect the environment and natural resources in the context ofsustainable development. According to some estimates, over 500 MEAs have beensigned covering a broad range of different, but related, issues (Young, 1999). Theseagreements constitute global regimes of varying effectiveness that govern state behaviorin regard to the issues that required action. Although the effectiveness of regimes as“’social institutions consisting of agreed upon principles, norms, rules, procedures, andprograms that govern the interactions of actors in specific issues areas’” is questionedby many scholars, the relentless efforts of the international community to pursue thistreaty-making approach is an important characteristic of sustainable developmentgovernance (Young, 1999: 1).

Another hallmark of the system of SDG is the regular gathering of a series ofinternational conferences related to this global public goods agenda. Building uponUNCED and the efforts leading up to it, Rio also launched a new round of globaldevelopment conferences that would lead to the Millennium Assembly in 2000. TheMillennium Declaration of the UN, agreed at the Millennium Summit of September2000 not only summarized the agreements and resolutions of the UN world conferencesheld during the years prior, but more importantly established the MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDGs). These quantitative goals are generally accepted as

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benchmarks for measuring actual development gains (Hens and Nath, 2005). Althoughprogress towards achieving the MDGs is mixed at best, most stakeholders interpret anduse these goals as a powerful political tool to hold governments and internationalorganizations accountable (Weiss et.al., 2004).

The Millennium Assembly was soon followed by a second round of world conferencesdealing with the difficulties faced by the world’s least-developed countries as well asthe challenges in global trade and finance. An important benchmark in sustainabledevelopment governance is the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) inJohannesburg, South Africa, in 2002. At the WSSD, the international communityreaffirmed its commitment to sustainable development. The Summit produced threekey documents, the first of which was the Johannesburg Declaration. The second wasthe Johannesburg Commitment, a plan of implementation, which set out acomprehensive program of action for sustainable development. Finally, the Summitdiversified the toolkit for SDG by introducing a new concept to support sustainabledevelopment in the form of partnerships, comprising voluntary arrangements amongstate and non-state actors (type 2 agreements) (Rogers et.al., 2006). In 2005, the UnitedNations released the Millennium Development Goals Report, which detailed theprogress, if any, made towards achieving the MDGs. Also in 2005, the UN GeneralAssembly adopted the 2005 World Summit Outcome as a follow-up to the 2000Millennium Summit. The World Summit Outcome, which frequently uses the term“development” as a short-hand for “sustainable development,” reaffirms theMillennium Declaration and recognizes sustainable development as a key element ofUnited Nations activities. Taking the 2005 Summit Outcome as a whole, together withthe other processes mentioned above, it looks as if sustainable development is widelymainstreamed as an overarching paradigm in the international governance systemrecognizing different roles for diverse stakeholders.

The involvement of a range of actors in governing sustainable development is not new,nor exclusively reserved for the sustainable development arena. As will be analyzedmore thoroughly in the following chapters through the lens of international forestpolicy-making, the mosaic of actors that make up the de facto system of SDG is both richand diverse and includes multiple institutional entities, although not all have equalinfluence on the system. Within the system of SDG the state is still perceived as theprimary actor (Najam et.al., 2004). Nevertheless, the system is composed of at leastfour additional entities, each of which is influenced by and can impact the behavior ofstates. The first category is international environmental organizations – including, forexample, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Commission onSustainable Development (CSD), the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), and thesecretariats to various multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs).

The second category identifies a broader set of related international organizationswhose mandate is broader in scope – reflecting the other pillars of sustainabledevelopment – and which can have significant impacts. Obvious examples are the WorldBank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which are directinterlocutors in sustainable development governance through their portfolios of

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development interventions (Tolba and Rummel-Bulska, 1998; Najam, 2002). Theseinterstate actors along with state actors support all three of the dimensions ofsustainable development through the creation of institutional capital and the operationof institutions in support of sustainable development.

The third category, non-state actors, is not only the largest category but probably hashad the largest impact on SDG (Arts, 2008). However, it tends to be discussed onlyperipherally. This category includes the vast number of nongovernmental organizations(NGOs), but also private sector and multinationals that have been prime demandeursof more and better global SDG and which remain key generators of agendas, knowledge,and monitoring intelligence on the state of global SDG (Najam et.al., 2004). Thiscategory has to be broader than just NGOs of all varieties and should also includeacademia, science and the mass media, all of which can influence how global SDG isconceived and implemented through the societal and environmental dimensions ofsustainable development through the creation of social and the protection of naturalcapital (Wapner, 1996). The business sector is primarily involved in the economicdimension of sustainable development by creating economic capital. However, as wewill analyze in more detail in chapter 4, corporations have been active in internationalrelations in multiple manners by influencing, amongst others, regime creation byemploying special assets, including particular technical expertise, in accordance withtheir corporate interests (Porter et.al., 2000). Agreements and partnerships among non-state actors have been referred to as Type 3 agreements (Chester and Moomaw, 2008).

The fourth category spans public concern and action for the global public good agenda.This becomes the basis and driver of action for the other categories and is a powerfultrigger of domestic political pressure, which, in turn, can dictate the behavior ofinternational organizations, such as the World Bank, as well as the various politicalprocesses. Additionally, it can also be a direct actor, such as through consumer activismthat can result in product boycotts and other forms of de facto standard setting (Keckand Sikkink, 1998).

Before we examine the key characteristics of the emergent system of global forestgovernance and its particular challenges, we now turn to the governance challenges ofthe sustainable development system, particularly those that are most commonlydiscussed in the academic literature.

2.3 Governance Challenges for Sustainable Development:What is the Problem?

While our understanding of how the various actors collude, collide, and coalesce in theglobal policy space remains incomplete both from the global forest governanceperspective, as well as the broader sustainable development agenda a system hasemerged organically (Young, 1994). It is imperfect and, of course, has room forimprovement, but it is a system that has proved to be resilient as well as prolific.

An optimistic account would suggest that the last few decades of global sustainabledevelopment action has resulted in a frenzy of international treaties and negotiations,the generation of significant amounts of funding, a plethora of projects, an array of new

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organizations, and the development of new knowledge. A less sanguine assessmentcould argue that most treaties remain unimplemented, commitments for technologytransfer and funding of programs fail to materialize, the money that is made availabletends to get squandered, and new organizations are competing over conflicting andsometimes overlapping mandates.

We accept that there is some merit in each of these stylized assessments. In general, andfor forest issues in particular, major challenges require an effective governance responseto the multifaceted, complex, interlinked sustainable development issues.

Although the following chapters will analyze the governance challenges related toforests in more detail, particularly in chapter 5, here in the broader sustainabledevelopment context we will identify the governance concerns that are usually cited.

a. Proliferation of MEAs and Fragmentation of Sustainable Development Governance

There are too many organizations engaged in SDG in too many different places, oftenresulting in duplicative or even conflicting mandates. The MEA Secretariats, as a subsetwithin sustainable development, are located in disparate parts of the world, havevarying levels of autonomy, and focus on separate but interrelated environmentalproblems (Knigge.et.al., 2005). For example, the climate secretariat is administered bythe UN Secretariat whereas the ozone and biodiversity secretariats report to UNEP.The CSD Secretariat is based in New York, the CBD is located in Montreal, UNConvention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the UNFCCC in Bonn, and theConvention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and the BaselConvention in Geneva. Fragmentation has lead to conflicting agendas, competencefights (turf wars), geographic dispersion, and inconsistency of rules and norms,especially as the different secretariats have limited opportunity to interact andcooperate (IPCC, 2001). Geographic dispersion leads to higher travel and personnelcosts, larger reporting burdens, and ‘negotiating fatigue.’ In particular, this drainsscarce human and institutional resources in developing countries and tends to distractthe best resources, using them for global governance rather than putting them towardsnational implementation (Najam et.al., 2006).

b. Lack of Cooperation and Coordination among InternationalOrganizations

The concern here is about the absence of any meaningful coordination mechanisms forSDG. For the environmental pillar of sustainable development, such coordination ispart of UNEP’s mandate (REF). However, UNEP has never been given the resourcesor the political capital to fulfill this mandate. UNEP’s ability to ‘coordinate’ with otherUN agencies is further hampered by the sheer number of agencies and programs in theUN that have some stake in environmental protection. The creation of the GEF as themain financing mechanism, the multitude of MEA secretariats, and the mandate of theCSD have all diminished UNEP’s authority and led to fractious turf wars and inter-agency politics. A climate of inter-agency distrust, uneven resource endowments, and

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unclear (and sometimes conflicting) mandates from the member states has not beenconducive to either institutional cooperation or coordination. Commentators concludetherefore that the CSD – with its broad mandate on all three pillars of sustainabledevelopment and its role to ensure effective follow-up of UNCED - has not lived up toits promises and has turned into another talk shop, lacking the necessary

buy-in from a broad range of sectors to be effective in setting the sustainabledevelopment agenda (Chasek et.al., 2006). For many observers of the process, it is vitalthat the CSD attracts and involves ministers of finance, trade, agriculture, anddevelopment cooperation to really live up to its expectations in terms of improving theeffectiveness of the sustainable development system by, amongst others, expanding thenarrow environmental scope of the Commission while integrating the other pillars ofsustainable development.

c. Lack of Implementation, Enforcement, and Effectiveness in Sustainable Development Governance

The sustainable development diplomacy system has turned into a perpetual“negotiating system” that is obsessed with continuing negotiations rather thanimplementing governance institutions that implement existing agreements. Theongoing efforts of Canada to continue its efforts with a group of like-minded countriesto negotiate a legally binding agreement on forests after the General Assembly of theUnited Nations concluded on a non-legally binding instrument on forests in 2007 is justone example of the inherent tendency to negotiate, instead of implement existingagreements, that has hampered the systems for years. The governance implementationdeficit is compounded by the fact that there is a dearth of enforcement mechanisms andlittle to no focus on ensuring that the instruments are effective in meeting their originalobjectives. The sustainable development system contains no meaningful disputesettlement body and few options are available to measure, ensure or enforce compliance.As with many other international processes and institutions, consensus building insustainable development negotiations is driven more by political feasibility rather thanscience or facts on the ground. This problem, of course, is endemic to internationalorganizations and is not unique to the sustainable development system.

However, ignoring science in the case of complex and long-term natural resourceprocesses, including those associated with forests, can have much higher and longer-lasting detrimental effects for sustainable development than will be visible in manyother arenas (Najam, 2006). For long, science and scientists have helped to mobilizedebate and action by governments on a range of sustainable development issues. Onmany issues scientific expertise is critical to assist policy-makers in the design of agovernance response (Elliott, 1998). However, science and the scientific communityhave become politicized in two ways. First, scientists themselves have become part ofthe political process, contributing to and becoming involved in decision-making. Second,science has become politicized as the results of scientific research, often subject touncertainties and differences within the scientific community, and has beenappropriated by policy-makers in the pursuit of political and economic interests

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(Jasanoff, 1990). As Litfin demonstrates, with respect to ozone depletion, “even withina relatively narrow range of scientific uncertainty, nations can easily interpret theavailable knowledge according to their perceived interests” (Litfin, 1993, p.100).

d. Inefficient Use of Resources The concern that is usually raised here is that the system as a whole seems to havesignificant (even if insufficient) resources, but the duplication and lack of coordinationwithin the system can mean that resources are not always used most efficiently. Forexample, in 2000 the World Bank had an active portfolio of over $5 billion inenvironmental projects, the UNDP’s portfolio was over $1.2 billion in the same year, andthe GEF has funded over $4.5 billion of projects since its inception (Kurz et al., 2008b).These resources were also used for project development as well as their implementation.In aggregate, national governments, civil society, and the private sector also expendsignificant financial resources on projects in the field of sustainable development. Inspite of this impressive pool of money, particular elements of the system remainchronically under-funded. Geographic fragmentation and duplication of activities oftenresult in higher operational costs and inefficient use of resources. With greatercoherence in the governance system and in financing, a great deal more could beachieved with the existing resources.

e. Sustainable Development Governance in the Broader Context An increasing number of important decisions affecting SDG now take place outside theSDG arena in areas such as trade, investment, and international development. Whileinstitutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO), UNDP, and the World Bank havebegun to pay much more attention to sustainable development than in the past,including to forest issues specifically, their discussions still remain largely outside theglobal SDG discussions. Or, rather, sustainable development actors remain at theperiphery of those decisions. In many cases, sustainable development decision-makersin general and, as we will analyze in more detail, global forest negotiators in particulartend to talk only to each other and are neither invited to nor make an effort to bemeaningfully involved in broader development decision-making.

For the system of global SDG as a whole to be effective it needs to find ways to moremeaningfully links to other areas of global policy, to ensure coherence with other areasof public policy, and to mainstream sustainable development considerations into macro-economic and security decisions. In the remainder of our study we will analyze this forthe forest case in which we identify the interaction of multiple institutional arenaswhere global forest governance is being discussed with a view to generate a more indepth understanding of the evolvement of the system.

f. Non-State Actors in a State-Centric System The institutions engaged in global SDG are designed to be state centric. However, civilsociety actors, such as environmental NGOs and business, are playing an increasinglylarge role in global sustainable development policy-making and implementation. NGOs

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play important roles in stimulating international conventions, drafting treaties,providing scientific information, and monitoring implementation. NGOs can also becritical in the implementation of international commitments. The private sector isbecoming increasingly engaged in SDG with a view to increase their market share andresponding to corporate social responsibility demands for example through greeningtheir market strategies and through voluntary commitments and Type 2 public-privatepartnerships, such as developed during the WSSD in Johannesburg. A more detailedaccount of this kind of arrangement for our case study will follow in chapter 5.

The SDG system, however, was not designed to accommodate these myriad non-stateactors. The challenge for the system of SDG is to create the institutional space to allownon-state actors to realize their full potential.

There is much debate amongst scholars and practitioners about whether and howimportant these various challenges are. However, there seems general consensusamongst policy-makers and scholars that more investment in new concepts is needed toimprove the system as it now exists. There is also an emerging sense that the discussionof SDG reform should envision a system in which the many different parts can interactmore efficiently and effectively in realizing the ultimate goals of sustainabledevelopment. Finally, as SDG changes over time, it is important to pay attention tohow SDG affects the various sectors within it. Conversely, to develop GFG in greaterdepth, the larger framework of SDG needs to adapt to the new environmental, economicand political/institutional conditions.

2.4 Global Forest Governance and Diplomacy: The StoryDeforestation is an issue that gained global prominence over the last century(Humphreys, 1996). Given the transboundary nature of forests, associated issues areinherently complex and global, and the system of GFG requires the engagement ofmultiple actors and non-forest political venues. As we will analyze in more detail inchapter 4, starting with governments and civil society, GFG has involved a wider rangeof actors over time, including, but not limited to, private companies, researchinstitutions and local communities. The causes of deforestation arise from a multitudeof factors and the interlinkages with other issues at all levels. Global forest governanceis the end product of an array of political, economic, environmental, and social dynamicsarising at the international, regional, national, and local level. As we stated earlier, ourpoint of analytical departure is the realization that a de facto “system” of GFG alreadyexists at this point. Over the last few decades, particularly since 1992, a whole array offorest instruments, organizations, and institutions have been developed – someorganically and others deliberately – the sum of which looks remarkably like an early,and rather disheveled, prototype of a global network of forest actors and institutions.

a. The Beginning…Forests were first discussed among countries in 1892, when a proposal for aninternational forest science research organ at the 1890 Congress of Agriculture andForestry in Vienna led to the creation of the international Union of Forest Research

Organizations (IUFRO 1992). Despite the early beginning of forest discussions, it wasnot until the United Nations system was established at the end of World War II thatcountries began discussing international forest policy issues more intensely (Humpreys,2006). The FAO Conference first met in 1945 as the principal global forum for thediscussion of international forestry issues and it remained so until 1971, when theCommittee on Forestry (COFO) was established. COFO meets every two years todiscuss forestry issues of an “international character” (Chasek et.al., 2006). Despitethese few multilateral forums, forests remained a domestic issue during this period(Humphreys, 1996).

Other milestones in the global forest policy dialogue include the adoption of theInternational Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA) in 1983 and the correspondingestablishment of the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) in 1986.These organizations promote international trade in tropical timber and thedevelopment of forest industries, as well as sustainable management of tropical forests(Humphreys, 1996).

Forest issues and discussions together with other environment- and development-related issues received increasing attention at the end of the 1980s. Since then, moreemphasis has been given to achieving a better understanding and appreciation of themultiple functions and significance of forests. The 1992 UN Conference onEnvironment and Development marked a turning point in the international forestpolicy dialogue when forests were examined within the context of sustainabledevelopment (Humphreys, 1996).

The agreement on the Forest Principles marked the first global consensus on the issue,but at the same time it exemplifies the lowest common denominator between the Northand South. It revealed a fundamental confrontation between the North and South,which has remained over the ensuing years, especially over a global forest instrument.From that moment onward a logjam arose in the international forest debate due tofundamental differences between the perspectives of the North and the South.

The forest issue was among the most contentious issues deliberated by governmentsduring UNCED, and there was a wide gap between the concerns and priorities of thegovernments of the North and those of the South. The developing countries claimedthat the environmental agenda of the industrialized countries was being imposed onthem, and they strongly defended their sovereign right to develop their naturalresources in order to meet national priorities and policy objectives. Accordingly, nationalsovereignty and the right to development became the fundamental elements of theForest Principles adopted at UNCED (Soderland and Pottinger, 2001). Thesefundamental differences in approach, analysis and perspective can be categorized intothree clusters:

Sovereignty over forests: representatives of developing countries clearly claimedunfettered national sovereignty over their forests; representatives of the developedworld recognized sovereignty, while also advocating that forests were a global commonconcern.

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Conservation versus development: given the devastating effects of deforestation thatwas highlighted during UNCED, the North focused on international commitments toforest conservation, while the South emphasized the need for economic development(just as the developed countries had become rich by cutting much of their forests) anddemanded compensation for economic loss if conservation were implemented.

Causes of deforestation and prescriptions: The developing countries emphasized currentglobal economic concerns, which the North tried to ignore and downplay by focusing onenvironmental sustainability (Humphreys, 1996).

Underpinned by these three issues, the proposal for an international forest conventionbecame one of the most contentious issues in global negotiations. The discussionscentered on the need for a legally binding instrument, which has overshadowed theforest dialogue until 2007. Moreover, many of these tensions that characterized theUNCED negotiations on forests continued to shape forest debates for almost 15 years,particularly under the UN bodies dedicated to furthering action on forests(Elliott,1998).

Despite the tensions, between 1992 and 1995 several joint North-South collaborations,and a new process to develop a common perspective on sustainable forest managementwere undertaken. These initiatives, which contributed to the review of the ForestPrinciples and Chapter 11 of Agenda 21 by the UN Commission on SustainableDevelopment (CSD) made it possible for countries to form a common internationalagenda on forests (Maini, 1997). This resulted in an agreement to begin the next phaseof negotiating within a new forum, the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF). Also,outside the UN system initiative was taken to form the World Commission on Forestsand Sustainable Development.

b. World Commission on Forests and Sustainable DevelopmentA world commission may be considered an innovative mechanism in global politics; aterm which goes back to the 1960s. World commissions set out to examine a seriousproblem of global dimensions that, for various reasons, is being ignored or inadequatelyaddressed by the international political system (Humphreys, 2006).

In October 1991, a meeting on international forest policy was held at the Woods HoleResearch Center in Massachusetts. Attended by around 30 policymakers, scientists, andacademics, the meeting agreed that an independent world commission should beestablished with the goal of creating a consensus for a convention. One month afterUNCED the first meting of the World Commission on Forests and SustainableDevelopment (WCFSD) was held in Rome. Members included Australia, China, India,Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, D.R. of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Bolivia, Brazil,Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Sweden,Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. The WCFSD sought to build links between the IPF, IFFand its own work. None of these efforts proved to be particularly successful. TheWCFSD made several recommendations in its 1999 report (see Box 2.1).

From the outset it became clear that the contribution of the Commission would dependon the extent to which its findings could influence the global forest process within the

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UN framework. In retrospect, it is clear that the Commission attained only minimalinfluence (Humphreys, 2006).

c. Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF)The establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel of Forests (IPF) in 1995 was thesecond building block in the international community’s on-going efforts towardsdeveloping intergovernmental consensus on forests (Humphreys, 1996). The Panelindicated its support for an innovative mechanism in the form of an informal, high-

Box 2.1 The ten resolutions of the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development

The WCFSD recommended:

1. that radical and urgent attention should be given to arrest the decline in forests, since forests, their products and services are threatened.

2. that conserving and sustainably managing the world’s forests should go hand in hand with the priority of reducing poverty and sustaining the livelihoods of millions of poor people and numerous communities who depend heavily upon forests.

3. that the public interest in a stable and secure environment must become paramount in decisions about the use and management of forest lands.

4. that the public interest in a stable and secure environment must become paramount in decisions about the use and management of forest lands.

5. that the threshold for responsible forest stewardship should be raised to reflect the new responsibilities of forest management to integrate economic, environmental and social considerations and to make the public interest paramount.

6. that new measures must be created to keep track of the value of the capital stock of forests and to create a basis for compensation to countries for the ecological services of forests.

7. that participatory planning for the use of landscapes, not just forests, should be instituted to ensure conservation objectives.

8. that the information base about forests should be enhanced and made more directly useful and applicable to policy-makers and in education programmes for the public.

9. that research and training should be adapted and accelerated to support the new responsibilities of forest management.

10. that additional avenues for political and policy leadership should be exposed to accelerate progress towards solutions.

Source: World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development. 1997. Our Forests, Our Future. Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 154-164, as reproduced in Humpreys, 2006.

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level Interagency Task Force on Forests (ITFF).

The IPF work program reflected progress on the implementation of UNCED forestrecommendations (Program area I); financial assistance and technology transfer(Program area II); scientific research, forest assessment, and criteria and indicators(Program area III); trade and environment in relation to forests, including voluntarycertification and labeling schemes (Program area IV); and, last but not least,international organizations and multilateral institutions and instruments, along withidentifying any gaps or areas requiring enhancement and areas of duplication (Programarea V). Of course, the IPF again had the daunting task of examining the need for aforest convention, which it pursued through its Cfour meetings: September 1995 (NewYork), March 1996 (Geneva), September 1996 (Geneva) and February 1997 (New York).

The outcome of the Panel’s intensive work, which included a number of government-led initiatives (Grayson and Maynard, 1997), was in itself impressive. The panel agreedon 270 proposals for actions. It elucidated “the consensus on the nature and scope of 11very complex issues related to forests and agreed on a large number of proposals foraction” (ibid.). The actions focused at the national level and were directed towardcountries and multilateral organizations as well as other stakeholders.

Given the fundamental differences between the North and South at UNCED, the IPFinitially was a fragile and vulnerable institution, but it developed over time into thefirst truly global forum where governments could exchange views on forest policy andforest politics. The IPF created a firm policy framework for national forest programs inan international context and also dealt with traditional knowledge for the first time ina multilateral forest forum (Humphreys, 1996).

Emphasis within IPF was on international forest instruments and means ofimplementation such as funding mechanisms, but many fundamental issues wereignored. Questions remain as to whether the IPF really made a significant contributionto sustainable forest management around the world, but, countries agreed that therewas added value in continuing the international dialogue and established theIntergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF).

d. Intergovernmental Forum on ForestsThe Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF), as the successor to IPF, came into beingfrom a decision of the 1997 Rio+5 Conference – 19th Special Session of the UN GeneralAssembly. The decision reads as follows:

“To maintain the momentum generated by the Intergovernmental Panel onForests process and to facilitate and encourage the holistic, integrated andbalanced intergovernmental policy dialogue on all types of forests in the future,which continues to be an open, transparent and participatory process, requiresa long-term political commitment to sustainable forest managementworldwide. (UNGA, 1997:Para39)”

The IFF, supported by the same ITFF used the same format of work as its predecessor,and continued in the tracks of the IPF. The Forum was mandated, inter alia, to consider

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matters left pending as regards the programme elements of the IPF; identify thepossible elements of and work towards consensus on international arrangements andmechanisms, for example, a legally binding instrument on all types of forests (Graysonand Maynard, 1997).

During the review of UNCED, long day and night negotiations were spent arguingwhether the IFF would focus its work on “including legally binding treaty.” It waseventually changed to “for example, a legally binding treaty,” but again the debate overa legally binding convention captured the entire IFF agenda (Humphreys, 2006).

The IFF maintained the same position within the UN system as the IPF, an open-endedsubsidiary body of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD). The workprogramme existed of: the Implementation of the IPF Proposals for action (Category I);matters left pending from IPF, such as financial resources, trade and environment,transfer of technologies, forest-related work of international and regional organizationsand under existing instruments (Category II); and international arrangements andmechanisms (Category III). The IFF held 4 meetings: October 1997 (New York),August-September 1998 (Geneva), May 1999 (Geneva), and January-February 2000(New York).

In its three-year lifespan, the Forum addressed a wide range of topics and drew on thework and outcome of a total of 11 country-led initiatives and 9 meetings of experts. TheForum’s final report was submitted to the 8th Session of the CSD in April 2000. Itsuccessfully promoted genuine policy dialogue on the full set of forests issues, including“the political will to reach consensus on many complex issues concerning internationalforest policy” (Soderlund and Pottinger, 2001). As with its predecessor, IFF, the IPFfailed to reach agreement on the fundamental issues of an international forestinstrument, i.e. a forest convention and financial mechanisms on forests. At the end ofthe last meeting of the IFF, positions hardened on these issues and deepened the North-South divide. Nevertheless, the IFF agreed that the Economic and Social Council andthe General Assembly would establish an intergovernmental body, which was called theUnited Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF).

e. United Nations Forum on Forests: early period (2001-2005)Given the circumstances at that time the controversy and seemingly irreconcilablepositions for and against establishing a mechanism for moving towards the formulationof a legally binding instrument, the final outcome of the Forum dealt with the matterin its Appendix entitled “International Arrangements on Forests” (Soderlund andPottinger, 2001). It was agreed that:

“The main objective of this international arrangement on forests is to promotethe management, conservation and sustainable development of all types offorests and to strengthen long-term political commitment to this end. Thepurpose of such an international arrangement would be to promote theimplementation of internationally agreed actions on forests, at the national,regional and global levels, to provide a coherent, transparent and participatoryglobal framework for policy implementation, coordination and development,and to carry out principal functions based on the Rio Declaration on

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Environment and Development, Non legally Binding Authoritative Statementof principles for a Global consensus on the management, Conservation andSustainable Development of All Types of Forestry (Forest Principles), chapter11 of Agenda 21 and the outcomes of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests(IPF)/Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF) process, in a mannerconsistent with and complementary to existing international legally bindinginstruments relevant to forests. (UN, 2000)”

At this moment, the UNFF is the only subsidiary body of ECOSOC with universalmembership. Its creation enhanced the international profile of forests. It was createdfor an initial period of five years (Hoogeveen, 2007), in which it held five sessions: anorganizational session in February 2001 (New York), its first session in June 2001 (NewYork), March 2002 (New York), June 2003 (New York), May 2004 (New York), and itsfifth session in June 2005 (New York).

The first session of the UNFF agreed to a multi-year program of work, containing 16elements (see Table 2.1).

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UNFF element Lead agency1. National forest programmes* FAO

2. Promoting public participation*

International UNFF Secretariat

National UNDP

3. Combating deforestation and forest degradation UNEP

4. Traditional forest-related knowledge CBD

5. Forest-related scientific knowledge CIFOR/ICRA/IUFRO

6. Forest health and productivity FAO

7. Criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management FAO/ITTO

8. Economic, social and cultural aspects of forests

Economic World Bank

Social CIFOR

9. Forest conservation and protection of unique types of forests UNEP

And fragile ecosystems

10. Monitoring assessment and reporting, concepts, terminology FAOAnd definitions*

11. Rehabilitation and conservation strategies for countries with UNEP

Low forest cover

12. Rehabilitation and restoration of degraded lands, and FAO/ICRAF/CCD

Promotion of natural and planted forests

13. Maintaining forest cover to meet present and future needs UNFF Secretariat

14. Financial resource* World Bank/GEF

15. International trade and sustainable forest management* ITTO

16. Capacity-building and transfer of environmentally sound FAO Technologies

Table 2.1 United Nations Forum on Forests: The 16 elements of the multi-year programme ofwork

Note: * Indicates elements addressed at the second, third, fourth and fifth sessions (other elementswere considered at just one of the first five UNFF sessions).

Sources: UN document E/2001/42 (Part II)-E/CN. 18/2001/3 (Part II), ‘Report of the United Nations Forumon Forest on its first session; New York, 11-22 June 2001,’ 28 June 2001, 16-17; ‘The Collaborative Partnershipon Forests,’ as reproduced in Humphreys, 2006.

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An important milestone was the creation of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests(CPF) as the successor of the ITFF, which still exists today. Chaired by the FAO, theCPF is composed of 14 forest-related international organizations (ITFF had 8members). A major task of the CPF is to contribute to the development andimplementation of the UNFF plan of action. Another task is to assist UNFF inmonitoring, assessment, and reporting of progress towards the achievement of itsobjectives, in particular on the implementation of the IPF/IFF proposals for action.Although starting as a promising concept within the UN, the CPF became the reflectionof the supranational forest policy bureaucracy (Agarwal et al., 2001). Importantcontributing factors to its challenges are, as indicated earlier in this chapter for thesystem of SDG: overlapping mandates of international organizations; multipleorganizations within the same broad arena that cut the issue “too thin” and therebymiss out on critical connections and relationships; turf wars between internationalorganizations, which lead to inefficiencies of the system; and last but not least,competing initiatives and programs that contribute to the complexity of the system.

Box 2.2 Interagency Turf Wars: The Implosion of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF)

In the second half of the 1990s the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF,1995-1997) and its successor the International Forum on Forests (IFF, 1997-1999)were established by the General Assembly of the United Nations. Theseintergovernmental bodies were mandated to define a common vision on howpolicy issues related to sustainable forest management (SFM) should be dealtwith at the global level, including the implementation of SFM at the regional andnational level. Although the IPF and IFF were able to produce an impressive listof actions for achieving SFM (IPF/IFF Proposals for Action), the internationalcommunity was still heavily divided at the closure of the last century over thecrucial international forest policy issues. Key outstanding issues surrounded themeans of implementation, especially financial means to support actions at thenational level and the establishment and legal character of a global forestinstrument.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the global forest issue is dealt with in a varietyof international organizations. The most significant organizations are: the Foodand Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), the World Bank, the Conventionon Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Environmental Program(UNEP), the Global Environment Fund (GEF), the International TropicalTimber Organization (ITTO), and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).Each of these organizations has their own governance structure, secretariat, andglobal forest programs.

When the discussions on the outstanding global forest issues intensified at UNheadquarters in New York, the controversies amongst the member states wereexacerbated when the international organizations – aware of the controversyamong member states – were searching for a way to broaden their scope of work

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on forests issues at the global level. Many of the organizations exploited thedivisions among national governments, which didn’t help the internationalnegotiations. During the intergovernmental meetings, member states’delegations were heavily lobbied by the experts of these internationalorganizations (such as the FAO, ITTO Secretariat and others) to supportproposals that extended the mandate of the organization they represented.

Against this backdrop of fierce interagency competition, member states came toan agreement to halt this interagency turf war that was proving to be verydestructive to the international process. At the last meeting of the IPF in January2000, heads of international organizations were strongly requested to establisha mechanism for interagency collaboration. As a response to this request, theEconomic and Social Council adopted Resolution 2000/35, causing theCollaborative Partnership of Forests (CPF) to come into being soon afterwardsin April 2001. In the ECOSOC resolution it also was decided that a newintergovernmental body, the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF), wasestablished with the intention that it should come to a resolution on aninternational agreement on forests. With the creation of the Resolution, it wasenvisaged that the UNFF would be supported by the CPF. This newbornmechanism for interagency collaboration consisted of 14 internationalorganizations (such as the FAO, World Bank, ITTO Secretariat, and GEF) andwas strongly welcomed by governments as an effective tool to ensure synergiesamongst these organizations.

From the outset the new Head of the UNFF Secretariat and the AssistantDirector General of the Forestry Department of the FAO made strong efforts topromote and ensure constructive collaboration within the CollaborativePartnership of Forests. As a result of these efforts, the first few years of the CPFinteragency hostility and turf wars diminished strongly. Coordination andcooperation turned from dream into a reality on the ground. However thissymbiotic relationship did not last for long. With new people coming in, such asnew heads of the UNFF Secretariat and the Forestry Department of FAO,combined with the expectation that the provision of new and additional fundsby donors could finally become a reality, the emerging trust among internationalorganizations diminished rapidly.

The seventh session of UNFF in 2007 was marked by intense interagencyhostility that resembled the period prior to the establishment of the CPF. In thecorridors of the UN building international organizations vigorously lobbieddelegations while discrediting the relevance of their counterpart organizations.Meetings of the CPF became a formality, less information was shared, and acommon position and coordinated programs amongst the member organizationsseemed to become out of reach. In particular, the relentless turf wars between theUNFF secretariat and the FAO Department of Forestry over who should be theglobal coordinating body on SFM paralyzed the functioning of the partnership atthat time. During UNFF 7 most of the international organizations sent their

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The UNFF focused on a broader range of activities than the IPF and IFF. It establishednew institutional arrangements like expert groups, ministerial segments, multi-stakeholder dialogues, and panels. However, lack of inter-linkages and operating inisolation from each other did generate the expected added value in terms of improvingthe effectiveness of the system. The multi-stakeholder panels had the benefit of givingexposure to critical voices of civil society, but because of the lack of impact, theintergovernmental negotiations ended in a lot of frustration. Even major groups arenow questioning the value of multi-stakeholder dialogues (Humphreys, 2006). The lackof meaningful participation of Major Groups / Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) duringUNFF negotiations goes beyond multi-stakeholder dialogues and general interventionsin plenary sessions. State-centric multilateral negotiations in general and UNFF inparticular miss out on critical expertise and experience that Major Groups / CSOs canbring to the table, particularly during the final stages of the decision-making process.As a consequence, negotiations may lead to outcomes without the necessary buy-in fromstakeholders relevant for implementation of the agreement (Najam, 2004).

Until the sixth session, the UNFF could not agree on major steps forwards in the forestagenda. Eventually it reached the law of diminishing marginal returns and manyquestioned whether anything could be gained within the Forum from trying to agree onfurther political commitments (Wettestad, 2005). As historically had been the case, themajor barrier remained the discussions on the need for a forest convention. Repetitionafter repetition of discussions occurred without bringing heavily divided partiestogether. Last attempts were made to bring in new ideas to change the discourse. As wewill analyze in our next session, these new ideas proved to be critical as a starting pointof the breakthrough. At the UNFF’s fifth session, ministers read statements to eachother, while in separate rooms they failed to make progress on any decision, and sonegotiations foundered. Clear voices erupted to end this “UN talking club of foresters”or “talk shop” (Davenport, 2005). However, in 2006 the controversies between Northand South were still unresolved.

f. UNFF (2006-2009): A New Beginning...?Despite the lack of agreement at UNFF 5, countries reconvened to assess the crisis andto review actions to be taken in February 2006 in New York during UNFF-6. A lastattempt was made to try to conceal the main outstanding issues related to the goals forSFM, especially in the light of the Millennium Development Goals, an internationalforest instrument and means of implementation.

Although the meeting started with the clear feeling of revisiting the “talk shop,” eventschanged. In the days to follow, the feeling of deep crisis changed the mood in theconference rooms and turned it into a shared notion that countries should endeavor inearnest to overcome such lingering concerns and apprehensions. They understood that

lower ranking officials to the meeting. As a result, the CPF was not a seriousplayer in the outcome of UNFF 7.

Source: personal information from the authors.

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this is required and that all those engaged in the forest sector and in its internationaldiscussions should put their shoulder to the wheel to help the UNFF to catalyze theimplementation of the proposals for action that it had inherited from its progenitors, theIPF and IFF. A crucial consensus arose on four global objectives for sustainable forestmanagement (see Box 2.3) as a stepping stone for an agreement on a non-legally bindinginstrument for sustainable forest management.

After 15 years of discussions and negotiations, the seventh session of the United NationsForum on Forests (UNFF 7) in April 2007 adopted a landmark agreement oninternational forest policy and cooperation that sets a new standard in the managementand sustainable development of all types of forests (Ban Ki Moon, 2009). This new globalagreement, the “Non-Legally Binding Instrument on All Types of Forests” (NLBI)provided a framework for international cooperation and national action as it endorsedthe goals to reduce deforestation, reverse the loss of forest cover, prevent forestdegradation, promote sustainable livelihoods, and reduce poverty for all forest-dependent peoples. Following a recommendation from the Economic and Social Council(through its Resolution 2007/40), on December 17, 2007, the General Assembly of theUnited Nation adopted the NLBI on all types of forests (UNGA, 2007b). As a part of thisResolution, the UN General Assembly also decided:

To develop and consider, with a view to adopting at the eighth session of the UNFF(April 2009), a voluntary global financial mechanism/portfolio approach/forestfinancing framework for all types of forests, aiming at mobilizing significantlyincreased, new, and additional resources from all sources, based on existing andemerging innovative approaches, also taking into account assessments and reviews of

Box 2.3 UNFF Global Objectives on Forests Global Objective 1

Reverse the loss of forest cover worldwide through sustainable forestmanagement, including protection, restoration, afforestation and reforestation,and increased efforts to prevent forest degradation;

Global Objective 2

Enhance forest-based economic, social, and environmental benefits, including byimproving the livelihoods of forest-dependent people;

Global Objective 3

Increase significantly the area of protected forests worldwide and other areas ofsustainably managed forests, as well as the protection of forest products fromsustainably managed forests;

Global Objective 4

Reverse the decline in official development assistance for sustainable forestmanagement and mobilize significantly increased, new, and additional financialresources from all sources for the implementation of sustainable forestmanagement.

current financial mechanisms, to support the implementation of sustainable forestmanagement, the achievement of the global objectives on forests and theimplementation of the non-legally binding instrument on all types of forests;

That the Forum should convene before its eighth session an open ended ad hoc expertgroup (AHEG) meeting (December 2008) to develop proposals for a voluntary globalfinancial mechanism/portfolio approach/forest financing framework, and invited theCollaborative Partnership on Forests to assist in the development of these proposals(UNGA, 2007b).

The outcome of UNFF 7, especially on the new NLBI with the Global Objectives onForests should allow the Forum and the wide range of stakeholders to mobilize theirresources and energies and concentrate on effective implementation of the agreements(Hoogeveen, 2007). This would call, inter alia, for a dedicated effort to achieve the leveland degree of coordination within and among relevant actors, institutions, mechanismsand processes to the degree reasonably possible. A critical factor for the effectiveness ofthe Forum is the requisite high-level political will among national governments. Bothdeveloped and developing countries, as well as forest-rich and forest-poor nations, needto make a serious effort to put forests and forest discussions on the active politicalagenda of the international community, most prominently on the UN agenda in orderto achieve the global objectives on forests.

UNFF-8 took up the task given by the General Assembly to “develop and consider, witha view to adopt a voluntary global financial mechanism/portfolio approach/forestfinancing framework for all types of forests”. UNFF8 could not reach consensus anddecided to complete the consideration of the means of implementation at its next sessionin 2011, although recent development cause some optimism for a more expedientresolution. Again, the negotiations in the Forum focused on the deadlock about theglobal forest fund. The challenge that remains is how to address one of the key issueswithin the international forest arena: mobilizing new and additional resources forforests in order to enhance their contribution to human well-being and the otherservices forests provide at the local, national, regional and international levels.

Concrete progress with respect to the formulation of a voluntary global financialmechanism can be seen as a critical litmus test for the Forum and even more forsustainable forest governance and diplomacy (Asadi, 2008). The issue of means ofimplementation will be discussed in more detail in chapter 5.

2.5 The Evolution of Global Forest GovernanceAs claimed before, the forest issue is complex and has multiple perspectives and linkagesto the full range of sustainable development issues (poverty reduction and livelihoods,trade and economic development, security, biodiversity and climate). To handle thiscomplexity, GFG has shifted over time to better address emerging priorities. Thisevolution is not unexpected, as generally governance progresses and discourse evolvesas issues change over time (Arts, 2008). Looking at Global Forests Governance, we cantrack the emergence of new dominant ideas that shaped – and reshaped - forest policy.Over the last forty years, these shifts have transformed forest policy from a ‘commodity

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issue’ into a ‘biodiversity issue,’ ‘a sustainable development issue,’ ‘a human rightsissue’ among others (Arts, 2008).

In this section we address the evolution of the Global Forests Governance system andforests as an international policy issue. We begin by taking a larger view of the forestagenda and the shifts that occurred over the past four decades. Moving from usingsilviculture or controlled management primarily for commodity production to utilizingin an ecosystem-based approach to support the delivery of environmental serviceswithin a sustainable development paradigm, we explore forests from an internationalpolicy perspective. This framework, shown by the diagram in Figure 2.2, provides abasis for analyzing how forests have become an international issue.

a. Emerging Ideas in Forest PolicyThe long-standing, policy approaches to forest management were aimed at simplifyingcomplex forest policy issues. Traditional approaches assume that forests were isolatedfrom broader social forces and had singular, unambiguous purposes. The early modernEuropean state viewed its forests primarily through the lens of revenue needs (Scott,1998). For centuries forests were managed as natural resources for human use withinnational boundaries.

These approaches are less effective today in an era when forests are recognized, as wewill analysis in more detail in chapter 3, as forceful determinants of the social fabric,with multiple uses, purposes, and goals. Traditional approaches to forest managementwhich is tendency towards regimentation seem to have difficulties to cope with themodern intensity, variety, and complexity of human activities and expectations. A newsense of scarcity and the increased understanding of global functions of forests areshifting attitudes of governments, civil society and the capital markets to see forestsystems as valuable, diverse, and vulnerable assets (PROFOR, 2007). In general terms,maintaining forests as “capital assets” is being seen as critical if individuals and nationsare to continue to receive the multiple benefits that flow as sustainable “incomestreams.”

We accept that forests can be viewed through various issue-specific lenses. While forestpolicy aims to incorporate these perspectives, it also reflects the evolving trends anddiscourses of forest management. Perhaps the most significant of these trends, forestsas an “international” policy issue, is particularly significant. While traditional forestmanagement viewed forests as national resources exclusively for national use, thisperspective is being supplanted by a notion of forests as resources of global public goods.The boom in international trade in the nineteenth-century began to move forests intothe international policy sphere and growing concerns about environmental degradationin the 1980s have elevated forests to the arena of international policy ( PROFOR, 2007).

Figure 2.2 highlights the key issues that have arisen in relation to forests and points tothe evolution in how the international community has addressed those issues over time.This evolution is a progression through four distinct periods, each with a dominantidea, prevailing slogan, emerging concept, and focus of policy action.

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Figure 2.2 The “wedge” diagramSource: Hoogeveen et.al., 2008

b. Towards Sustained YieldDeforestation, particularly tropical deforestation, accelerated in the 1970s as developingcountries began leveraging their natural resources for their own economic growth anddevelopment. Conventional silviculture, or controlled management of forestcomposition and growth, facilitated unsustainable yields of timber, as forest resourcemanagers pushed as many logs as possible “to the mill gate.” Additional deforestationoccurred as individuals and governments effected land use changes by replacing forestswith agricultural and urban landscape and as forests were lost to fuel use and resourceextraction.

The demand for forest products in consumer countries and development pressures incountries such as Brazil, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Mexico lead to multipleactivities: increased logging, mineral and fossil fuel extraction, reservoir constructionfor irrigation, electric power and flood control, wood as fuel use, agricultural production,ranching, and road infrastructure development across millions of hectares of tropicalforestland. As a result of these drivers of deforestation, a new sense of scarcity andincreased understanding of forests’ global roles shifted attitudes of governments, civilsociety, and business to see forests as valuable, diverse, and vulnerable assets (PROFOR,2007). As we can see in figure 2.2, government regulation was seen for many policymakers and advocates as the key to providing the resources to reduce these losses. Asa consequence forest advocates put pressure on their own and foreign governments to

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curb the rate of deforestation and to protect the rights of indigenous people and othersliving in forests. This redefined the conservation agenda, which expanded by limitingtrade in endangered and overexploited species and protecting ecologically sensitive orthreatened forest areas. The result was a more universal acknowledgement of themultiple values of forests.

c. From Sustainable Yield toward Sustainable Forest ManagementDespite these advances in public awareness, by the early 1990s deforestation stillconcerned policymakers and advocates around the world. In 1992, 172 governmentsand thousands of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) participated in the Rio EarthSummit to discuss energy, air quality, water scarcity, and resource production trends(including forest products), as well as their impacts on biodiversity, the environment,and development. After the 1992 Earth Summit, the concept of forest managementshifted from sustained yield forestry, aimed at producing a specific product, toSustainable Forest management (SFM). Sustainable forest management encompassesa much wider range of goods and services that forests provide, such as supporting localpeople’s livelihoods, stabilizing climate providing water storage and water qualityprotection, providing recreational (and associated economic) opportunities andmaintaining the spiritual and cultural values to humanity of sacred natural places,wilderness, and open space in an increasingly urbanizing world. The management offorest ecosystems for this broad range of goods, values, and services therefore requiresa much more diversified approach than conventional silviculture could provide(PROFOR, 2007).

As we will examine in more detail in chapter 4, during this period the number of NGOsworldwide grew enormously and they played an increasingly active role in policydevelopment and implementation. As a result, civil society became an increasinglyimportant influence on policy and played important roles in mobilizing and pioneeringinnovative action on the ground. Additionally, the relationship between forests andhuman security and well-being emerged as an important new issue.

d. From Sustainable Forest Management toward Forests forSustainable Development

Before the end of the 20th century, forest products were typically mostly considered interms of volume rather than quality. Market and industrial structures favored theproduction of bulk wood products that satisfy a minimum quality and economics of scaleassociated with highly capital-intensive technologies rather than ways to optimize thevalue of a diversified “portfolio” stream of forest goods and services. The latter approachrequires new knowledge and new organizational strategies and technologies to produce,process, market, and finance a diversified and quality-oriented forest economy at scalesthat are significant (PROFOR, 2007).

By the end of the 20th century, the emerging idea was that the forest agenda had furtherevolved from strictly biophysical to multi-dimensional, with sub-national, national,transboundary, regional, and global dimensions.

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e. Toward the FutureUntil recently, forests were treated primarily as collections of timber stands—discrete,homogeneous units of timber and timber potential (PROFOR, 2007). Nowadays, theyare increasingly considered patterned aggregations of trees and other plants in acommunity with animals and microbes defined by the abiotic conditions of soils, waterand climate in functionally interdependent landscapes. Ecosystem management,agroforestry, watershed agreements, ecoagriculture, community forestry, riparianforests, urban forestry, and carbon forests characterize the broad range of newapproaches that have come to dominate public understanding of what a forest is andwhat it can produce.

In this gradual evolvement of forests becoming a global, multifaceted issue, the focushas shifted to recognize forests as providing ecosystem services to meet human needs,specifically human well-being and development needs. As a result, the forest agenda hasexpanded to include multi-dimensional factors with sub-national, national,transboundary, regional, and global dimensions. Meanwhile, the scope of the globalforest agenda has expanded to view forests as important to livelihoods, development,trade, biodiversity, health and human security and most recently to climate changemitigation and adaptation (PROFOR, 2007).

2.6 Challenges for Global Forest Governance As we began to see in this chapter, global forest governance and diplomacy is facing thesame basic problems and challenges as those of other aspects of sustainabledevelopment governance. These challenges all relate to the increasing complexity ofGFG. For forests to be sustainable, forests require that all three pillars of sustainabledevelopment: social, environmental, and economic be addressed through policy.

In 2006, the Chair of UNFF 7 recognized in his address to ECOSOC that “the currentsystem of international forests governance presents a series of challenges which needto be addressed to fully capitalize on the possibility of strengthening the link betweenforest policy issues and sustainable development” (Hoogeveen, 2006). In his addressthe Chair pointed towards three particular challenges that needed to be overcome inorder to make the system more effective:

a. Complexity of Issues, Inter-linkages, Fragmentation, and Proliferations of Arenas

The emergence of new dominant ideas shaped – and reshaped – international forestpolicy. In response to this evolution, the system of GFG, however, continues to treatforests in a singular, fragmented manner. Consequentially, the system is still wrestlingover how to overcome the ‘balkanization’ of the system of sustainable forest governance.The Chair of UNFF 7 pointed to the fact that there are many internationalorganizations and processes engaged in global forest governance in many differentplaces worldwide, sometimes with overlapping mandates and duplication of workprogrammes.

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b. Complexity of Actors, Lack of Cooperation and CoordinationAs we will identify in more detail in chapter 4 the system of global forest governance,by demonstrating involves a vast number of different stakeholders with differinginterests and goals. The obvious, but extremely complicated challenge is how non-stateactors should play an appropriate role in a state-centric system that has never beendesigned to accommodate them. Paraphrasing the words of the UNFF Chair, ‘thechallenge for the future is to be innovative and to craft additional institutional space toallow for these stakeholders to realize their full potential’ (Hoogeveen, 2006).

c. Complexity of Instruments and Lack of Implementation Diplomacy incorporates both the process of negotiation and the utilization of systemsof governance to implement the objectives and goals which have been agreed upon. Thehistory of international forest policy describes an unbalanced diplomatic system, whichis in a perpetual stage of negotiation with insufficient attention to its efforts atimplementing instruments and systems of governance to meet the stated goal ofreducing forest loss. In addition to this generic problem with the system of global forestdiplomacy “the system as a whole seems to have substantial, though insufficient,resources, but duplication and lack of coordination can mean that resources are notalways used efficiently” (Hoogeveen, 2006). These are formidable challenges thatrequire a deeper exploration.

Chapters 3, 4, and 5 - on issues, actors and instruments –analyze the factors that impedethe system of global forests governance in influencing the relevant behavioral complexthat channels behavior in such a way as to eliminate or substantially ameliorate theunderlying causes of deforestation and degradation.

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Chapter 3

Issues and Linkages

Lead author: Patrick Verkooijen; Co-author: Hans Hoogeveen

3.1 IntroductionAs the previous chapters illustrate, forests, covering nearly one-third of Earth’slandscape, have long been a valuable resource for populations around the world.Forests provide economically valuable industries, support subsistence lifestyles andhuman well-being, and provide ecological services. As a result, the multiple functionsof forests create linkages with other sectors, including development, trade, livelihoodsand ecosystem services. Given these multiple linkages, a multifaceted complexity offorest-related issues, as we will analyze in this chapter, has emerged that forms thecontext of the evolving system of global forest governance.

Historically, forest resource beneficiaries and policy-makers alike regarded forestresources as commodities to be used for human development, such as logs, oil, andminerals. Often forestlands were cut and cleared with little concern for their capacityto sustainably produce forest products or their biodiversity value. During the 19thcentury, Europeans developed scientific forestry that converted forests into tree farms,often planting monocultures of highly productive non-native tree species. The tendencywas toward regimentation in which trees were drawn up into serried, uniform ranks,to be measured, counted off, felled, and replaced by a rank and file of lookalikeconscripts (Scott, 1998). Influenced particularly by the scientific management methodsof France and Germany, the United States established the U.S. Forest Service in 1905to manage the vast government owned lands for “sustainable” timber production andother “multiple uses” including watershed protection, wildlife and recreation. Sincethen some of these lands have received even greater protection under the WildernessAct and Roadless Area designations.

Forests were also often seen as impediments to the expansion of human capacities andwere (and continue to be) cleared to provide additional space for urban and industrialdevelopment and agricultural land. Nations with frontier forests have historicallyallowed citizens to claim forested lands if they “improved them” by clearing trees (Scott,1998). Such practices continue in some countries today.

As identified in the previous chapters, it was not until the 1980s that the environmentalcommunity and indigenous peoples raised alarm about the unprecedented rates ofdeforestation overtaking tropical countries and the potential impact on speciesextinction. Swept up in increasing awareness of ecological disasters, forests wereelevated to an international issue and became, at that time a biological diversity issue,and, with regard to indigenous peoples and local communities, a human rights concern.

In this chapter we develop a pathway through the complexity and cross-sectoral natureof international forest policy from a multi-issue perspective. The realization that forestswere much more than commodities to be claimed or land to be cleared altered the natureof the international dialogue significantly (Maini, 2004). By this point, the multi-dimensional linkages between forests and development, trade, and illegal logging weretaking shape. New connections between forests and other issues were increasingly beingrecognized, such as the dependence of indigenous peoples on forests for their livelihoodsand security concerns associated with illicit activities (Maini, 2003). The emergence ofthese new linkages added another layer of complexity to the evolving system of globalforest governance, which intensified more recently when climate change surfaced as anew international threat with a profound forest related dimension.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the complexity and interconnectivity of the issuesrelated to forests, different actors and instruments tend to conceive of forests in relationto their own overarching interests and within their own instrumental rationality: theenvironmental movement aims to protect forests from exploitation in order to protectbiodiversity and ecosystems, the utilitarian conservationists support the sustainableuse of forest ecosystems, local communities see forests primarily as a livelihood issue,the private sector focuses on the return on investments, the trade regime deals withtrade in forest products, with marginal concern for the continued availability of forestproducts, governments support clearing of forest land for increased livestockagricultural production and the climate change regime is focusing on the effect ofdeforestation and degradation on carbon sequestration as part of the global carboncycle.

Before we begin to examine more thoroughly the other system components, actors andinstruments, in the next two chapters, the interrelatedness of the different issues thatframes the emerging system today will be analyzed.

A range of sector-based lenses are used: development, trade, livelihoods and humanhealth, security, biodiversity and climate change. Through these different lenses weseek to understand the extensive range of cross-sectoral linkages between theserespective domains that affect forest management (Maini, 1996). These lenses tend tooffer narrow perspectives that reflect how policy is derived for specific purposes thatprovide, as it turns out, insufficient attention to cross-cutting themes and interests.

Figure 3.1 provides a visual image of the linkages among forest-related issueshighlighting the complexity of the forest system. From this, forest-related issuelinkages that represent many, though perhaps not all, of the major viewpoints on forestshave been selected. We do this to paint a broad-brush overview of the interdependencybetween various objectives and constraints that affect forest management and toillustrate the complex institutional and societal context that an effective system ofglobal forest governance must account for today.

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51

Figure 3.1 Forest linkages: systems diagram of the relationship between forests and other sec-tors and issues as well as linkages among the other issues

3.2 Forest LinkagesUnderlying the analysis of the complex interactions of forest-related issues is theunderstanding of the three pillars of sustainable development, as presented in chapter2. Throughout this chapter the inter-linkages between forests and the various issues areshaped by the implications in each of these three realms: the economy, the environmentand society. Another important consideration for understanding the complexity of thesystem is the recognition of the multiple underlying causes impacting deforestation andforest degradation (Chomitz, 2007). The multiplicity and interconnectivity of theseunderlying causes contributes to the complexity of the system resulting in a governancechallenge on how to manage it.

Box 3.1 Underlying causes for deforestation and degradationThe main driver of deforestation and forest degradation is forestland conversioninto other uses, primarily commercial agriculture and subsistence farming.Another major contributor is unsustainable and often illegal logging practicesleading to excessive forest utilization. The most commonly cited underlyingcauses of deforestation and degradation include:

Socio-economic drivers. Rural poverty, population growth, agriculturalexpansion, increasing demand for wood for industrial and consumer markets andthe high degree of dependence of low income families on fuelwood and charcoalin their energy supply are the key socio-economic drivers of deforestation. Thesefactors are amplified by a lack of alternative off-farm employment and inadequate

social infrastructure such as education and health facilities posing significantconstraints to the achievement of reduced emissions from deforestation andforest degradation.

Extra-sectoral policies. In many cases deforestation and forest degradationis resulting from policies of other sectors, such as agriculture, transportation,energy, industry, mining and tourism, which do not consider climate and otherenvironmental and social impacts on forests. In many countries subsidizedagribusiness developments such as cattle ranching, oil palm, cocoa, soybean andrubber are leading to large-scale conversion of rain forests with significantclimate impacts. Design of national development policies and programs shouldconsider adequate provisions for forest protection and the full value of variousforest functions and services, including climate change mitigation.

Private investment in unsustainable activities. High global demand forforest sourced wood products combined with lack of comprehensive demand andsupply-related regulatory measures continue to create strong economicincentives to maintain illegal or unsustainable logging practices. Unsustainableharvesting and exploitation is undertaken by a wide range of operators from largeprivate concerns to, in some cases, local communities given the quick profit-making opportunities. Market transformation is needed to promote marketaccess and competitiveness of legally and sustainably produced forest products,which would also ensure maintenance and enhancement of the carbonsequestration services of production forests. The use of investment safeguards,forest certification, and verification of legal sourcing are useful tools to promotemarket transformation on the supply side, but capacity remains weak in manydeveloping countries.

Weak capacities and insufficient financial resources. There are significantcapacity gaps among government agencies, the private sector, forestcommunities, smallholders and other stakeholders to undertake managementplanning, implementation and monitoring of sustainable forest management andto protect forest resources from external risks such as encroachment, illicitoperations, forest fires and pests.

Undervaluation of forests. The lack of recognition and manifestation of thevalue of forest-related ecosystem services (climate change mitigation,biodiversity, water, wildlife resources etc.) means forest owners and managerscannot adequately capture the opportunities for revenue generation from theseservices. These actors are, therefore, constrained in catalyzing or providingnecessary reinvestment in forest regeneration. Inadequate economic valuation ofthe forests acts as a driver for unplanned deforestation through land conversionwith large-scale carbon emissions.

Poor governance and corruption. The national policy and legal frameworkis often inconsistent and lacks clarity to guide forest stakeholders in their actions.The high transaction costs of legal compliance can act as an incentive for large-

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Issues and Linkages

Forests and DevelopmentForests have long been linked to development. While the wide variety of definitions andconnotations associated with the term development encompasses such aspects aslivelihoods, health, and well-being, it usually also refers to “economic progress,” whichis commonly equated with growth in individual income and per capita Gross DomesticProduct. The relation flows in both directions: national development andmacroeconomic policies affect forests and, forest resource use and policies affecteconomic growth (World Bank, 2008).

The linkage between forests and development was one of the central controversies inthe forest negotiations leading to UNCED in 1992, when opposing views emergedbetween countries of the developed North and those in the developing South. WhileNorthern governments that had initiated this negotiation process were focused on theenvironmental dimensions of forest use, Southern governments viewed forestproprietorship in a different light: they saw forests as a tool for national development,

scale illegal logging driven by expanding global forest product markets whileputting legal operations at a competitive disadvantage. Opaqueness of allocationof forest use rights and forest financial flows, combined with ineffectivegovernment regulatory and institutional mechanisms, frequently hinderssustainable forest management.

Unclear land tenure. Many countries have failed to protect and establish clearrights of forest dependent indigenous and other communities, as well as the rightof individual farmers to take advantage of their potential role in conservationand sustainable utilization of natural resources resulting in poverty reduction,protection of the forests against encroachment and forest degradation.

Inadequate investment in afforestation, reforestation and restoration.There are approximately 800 million hectares of degraded forest ecosystems indeveloping countries. Mainly due to unfavorable investment climate, risks,inadequate infrastructure and long transport distances the current markets forforest products and the present funding sources cannot mobilize adequatefinancing for this investment, which otherwise would significantly contribute tocarbon sequestration globally.

Inadequate investment in protected area management. The world’s 600million hectares of protected areas are key for conserving global biodiversity andproviding important ecosystem services. In addition, due to their relatively intactnature, protected areas are in many cases important repositories of carbon.However, while many of these areas are economically inaccessible, other areas areunder increasing pressure form development and illegal activities, includinglogging. Many governments do not have the resources and capacities toeffectively administer and protect these areas. Without adequate investmentsthese areas are becoming important sources of carbon emissions.

Source: Verkooijen and Dieterle, 2008.

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in which each country has a sovereign right to decide how to use its natural resources(Humphreys, 1996). Since then the perceived dichotomy between development andconservation was gradually transformed into the concept of sustainable forestmanagement (Maini, 2004).

Past decades show that the depletion of forests due to land conversion is heavilyinfluenced by economic growth policies (see also Box 3.1, Causes of Deforestation).Competition for land is particularly becoming more intense in developing countries(Cotula et.al., 2009). Urbanization in certain parts of the world is a major trend and asa result, agricultural land and forests on the margins of expanding cities and towns arebeing lost. More importantly, growing demands for food and feed are translating intoincreasing demand for agricultural land, particularly in the context where opportunitiesfor enhancement of agricultural productivity are missed. Provided that naturalconditions (e.g., soil characteristics) are suitable and that the opportunity costs of land-use conversion are covered, using more land for crop and livestock production is arational response in the narrow economic sense to increasing demand for agriculturalcommodities.

Table 3.1 gives some examples of land use returns that can be derived from converted land(Eliasch Review, 2008)

According to World Bank statistics world population will probably increase by 50 percent to 9 billion over the next 40 years. Much of this rise will occur in developingcountries. Even faster than the growth in the world population is the growth of theglobal middle class, as a result of economic development. The World Bank estimatedthat that by 2030, 1.2 billion people in developing countries – 15 per cent of the worldpopulation – will belong to the middle class, up from 400 million in 2005 (World Bank,2007). The growing middle class is important for understanding changing demandbecause it is able to afford more meat and dairy produce. This kind of diet requiresmuch more land to support it compared with a vegetable-based diet increasing the

Country Land use Land use returns ($/ha)

Brazil Soybeans 3,275

Beef cattle (medium/large scale) 413

One-off timber harvesting 251

Beef cattle (small scale) 3

Indonesia Large scale palm oil 3,340

One-off timber harvesting 1,099

Smallholder rubber 72

Rice fallow 28

Cameroon Cocoa with marketed fruit 367

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Issues and Linkages

pressure on forests (Gerbens-Leenes et al, 2002).

Even if forests are sustainably harvested, the revenues available are often unattractivecompared with those available from conversion. The promotion of agriculture, cattleranching, logging, oil production, mining, and other economic drivers depends onmultiple factors, such as government policies and international markets (Chomitz,2007). Many governments focused on the ‘use’ of forests up through the 1980s,encouraging productive economic activities rather than conservation or subsistenceactivities. For example, through its Land Conservation Laws in the past, Ecuadorallowed individuals to claim property rights of land through clearing because otherwiseit was perceived as ‘unproductive.’ Along with increasing GDP or exports by these‘productive activities,’ governments can also obtain revenue by levying concession fees.Combined with decades of modest regard for environmental impacts, a great deal ofdeforestation, degradation, and pollution in many of the world’s forests resulted.However, in a major break with this trend, on September of 2008, Ecuadorian votersapproved the new constitution, which provided legal rights for nature, and called upongovernment “to avoid measures that would destroy ecosystems or drive species toextinction” (Partlow and Kuffner, 2008). More recently, the Ecuadorian governmentintroduced the notion, as part of the climate negotiations, to incentivize donorgovernments to pay Ecuador to keep its oil in the ground as a form of climate changemitigation and therefore reducing the pressure on forests.

The extractive and non-extractive uses of other natural resources can leave a largefootprint on forested areas (Oxfam, 2006). Extractive pursuits have wreaked havoc onforests for decades. To pursue gold mining, mineral extraction, and/or oil drilling, roadshave been constructed through forested areas increasing the pressures on forests(Chomitz, 2007). For the actual extraction, land is cleared and without adequateregulations in place or enforced, spills, disasters, or pollution run-off are commonevents. Government policies to stimulate exports leading to better terms of trade, suchas credit or fiscal incentives for capital investment, have an indirect effect of increasingland clearance for extractive industries (Humphreys, 1996). As opposed to extractiveindustries, non-extractive uses, when conducted in a sustainable manner, such asfishing, hunting, and even rubber-tapping are generally accepted as subsistenceactivities that can help alleviate poverty in forested regions while not requiring landclearance (World Bank, 2008).

As noted earlier, agricultural policy has repeatedly led to the destruction of forests(Chomitz, 2007). To advance the economic progress of rural regions, governments useagricultural subsidies and incentives to increase livestock, grain or palm oil production,and they enhance access by building roads (World Bank, 2008; Chomitz, 2007). Whilein some cases good for agricultural returns, the fate of forests is quite the opposite whenpotential for agricultural productivity enhancements is not captured. In the BrazilianAmazon for example, higher rates of deforestation are found closer to roads, whichraises questions about the impacts of planned infrastructure projects on forest resources(WRI, 2006).

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Along with agriculture, the increase in demand for biofuels may lead to increasedpressures on forests by planting certain feedstocks (Kleiner, 2008; Taxin, 2008). Thelast five to ten years have seen a strong resurgence of interest in bioenergy along withthe gradual development of more modern and efficient bioenergy production systems.This has been driven by several factors, including government policies, instability inoil producing regions, financial markets shift of investments to commodities and oil,extreme weather events, and surging energy demand from developing countries(Cushion and Dieterle, 2009). In response to these various factors, many countries havebegun to explore bioenergy alternatives.

The agricultural capacities of lands in North America and Europe are not sufficient tomeet demand for biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel, and increasingly areas ofdeveloping countries are cleared. For example, the area of palm oil production isexpected to grow to over 12 million hectares by 2012 in Indonesia and Malaysia alone(Carter et al. , 2007). Increasingly the adoption of renewable-fuel targets by manydeveloped countries, national goals for energy independence, and increasing demandfor alternatives to fossil fuels is driving the demand for biofuel crops, including corn,palm oil, soybean, and sugarcane. This has lead landowners, including governments, toclear forestlands for cultivation of these crops (Kleiner, 2008). In countries such asBrazil, as the soy diesel industry grows, it facilitates infrastructure expansion to accesspreviously untapped resources that can be found in regions such as the Amazonrainforest (Taxin, 2008). By contrast, the Brazilian sugar cane bioethanol industryutilizes just one percent of Brazil’s arable land, and most expansion is occurring into lowyielding pasturelands used for livestock production.

While biofuel crop cultivation generates a new source of revenue for landowners, it oftencontributes to soil and groundwater degradation, biodiversity and habitat loss, as well

Box 3.2 Forests and Development – The Amazon BasinThe Amazon Basin exemplifies the wide range of development pressures thatimpact land-use decisions. Brazil’s area in tropical forests has about 4 millionsquare kilometers of tropical forests and deforestation rates remain high.Indigenous peoples live throughout the region, but most non-indigenous peoplessettle at the fringes of the forests or along roads that bisect it, thereby puttingdevelopment pressure on the forests. Logging, both legal and illegal, is a commoncause of deforestation of some parts of the Amazon. Small landholders are oftenpushed deeper into the forests due to insecure land rights as they seek to clearthe lands before cattle ranchers move in. From 1990 to 2003, Brazil’s cattle herdgrew from 27 million to 64 million, with much of their grazing land originatingas forest land. The soy biodiesel boom has also consumed large swaths ofBrazilian tropical forests. The land area in soybean production grew more than50% from 1995 to 2003. These direct causes of deforestation in Brazil’s Amazonare often driven by underlying macro-economic policies and conditions, such asland-use policies and price fluctuation of commodities (Taxin, 2008).

Issues and Linkages

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as social conflicts. However as box 3.2 on the interlinkage between forests anddevelopment in the Amazon Basin illustrate, the outcomes for forests depends uponhow policies are designed and implemented. In sum, bioenergy developments, as asubset of the sustainable development agenda, present both opportunities andchallenges for socioeconomic development and the environment and have a number ofpotential impacts on forests and the rural poor who depend on forests for theirlivelihoods (Cushion and Dieterle, 2009).

Forests and TradeDevelopment of forest resources often leads to trade in forest products, such as timber,pulp and paper, and non-wood forest products. While this is not a new issue, as globalforest resources diminish and demand for forest products increases, the linkage betweentrade policy and global forest governance is becoming increasingly evident as globalforest resources diminish and the demand for forest products increases.

In 2000, the gross value-added in the global forestry sector totaled about US $354billion, and in 2003, the global trade in wood products alone totaled about US$150billion (Simula, 2008). The U.S., Canada, Japan, and Europe have been the leadingmarkets on these commodities, with developing countries accounting for about 20percent; however, countries such as India and China are gradually increasing their shareof wood and wood product imports (Richards and Jenkins, 2007).

Even though society has reaped economic gains from forest products for centuries, it hasonly been within the past two decades that agreements were developed to shape theexchange of forestry products. As we will see in more detail in chapter 5, which analyzesthe different types of forest-related instruments, the 1980s concern that tropical forestswere being destroyed primarily by logging led to the formation of one of the firstinternational agreements governing forests—the International Tropical TimberAgreement, which is better known for the International Tropical Timber Organization(ITTO) that it formed. In the trade arena, the ITTO represented the first turn awayfrom viewing timber production as solely aimed at economic gain as it recognizedsustainable forest management as one of its principles. In the 1990s, the ITTA, as acommodity agreement, was eclipsed by the World Trade Organization (WTO), whichnarrowed the focus to forests as a commodity in international trade, leaving thesustainable management component to the ITTO.

The WTO views forest products as one type of product among a range of ‘Non-Agricultural Products,’ leaving less opportunity to address issues that are specific toforests. However, while the WTO’s focus on the forestry industry is concentrated moreon purely trade principles compared to the ITTO, it also expanded governance offorestry trade. The WTO’s structure around many narrowly focused agreementsinfluences both timber production and trade. Agreements such as the Agreement onTechnical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and the Agreement on the Application of Sanitaryand Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) increase the complexity of the relationships betweenforests and trade.

As referred to earlier, illegal logging was raised on the international agenda in response

to growing concerns of the associated adverse effects associated. The World Bankestimates that governments lose $5 billion in revenue and the legal forestry industryloses over $10 billion per year due to illegal logging (World Bank, 2008). Although thereis no internationally accepted definition for illegal logging, it usually encompasseslogging in protected areas, logging outside concession boundaries, and cutting moretimber than the concession contract stipulates (Humphreys, 2006). Deforestation fromillegal logging is located primarily in a handful of forest-rich developing countries,responding, amongst others, to demand for wood from abroad and domesticconsumption. Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea,Myanmar and the Philippines are among the list of countries that are recognized ashaving an illegal logging problem, while the Congo Basin, the Amazon Basin, CentralAmerica, and Russia have also experienced waves of illegal logging (Humphreys, 2006).The flow of illegally harvested timber products is not always a simple two-countryproduction-consumption dynamic, and it can have a global scope through tradeinteractions.

The effect of illegal trade in timber products varies broadly depending on the offenseand activity, resulting in environmental, economic, and social consequences.Environmentally, habitat is destroyed, increasing the threat of species extinctionsreliant on the forests. Economically, forestry businesses around the world lose moneywhen the markets are flooded with timber that has been produced at a lower cost byevading laws and legal fees (Humphreys, 2006). Government revenue is lost, whichcould affect a range of other government programs such as social services, health careand education. Furthermore, in some regions populations are displaced, especially thosethat are nomadic. Illegal logging may also alter the land and the livelihoods of thosepeople dependent on it. However, on a more positive note, as we will discuss morethoroughly in chapter 5, an increasing number of governments and non-state actorsare making additional efforts to curb trade in illegally harvested forest products.

Nevertheless, it was not until the 1990s that illegal logging was elevated from a nationalto an international issue, recognizing that progress to oppose such practices took timeto be explicitly stated (Arts, 2008). There was significant hesitation to include this onthe formal international agenda for fear that it might constrain forest-rich developingcountries to make their own decisions. While it was framed as a trade issue the ITTAalluded to it as ‘undocumented trade.’ (Humphreys, 2006). In this process, the firststeps pursued were supply-side approaches to stop illegal trade coming from producercountries. The United States government’s commitment to address illegal logging inAsia provided an important impetus for the Forest Law Enforcement Governance(FLEG) process, which, as we will discuss in more detail in chapter 5, went on to createregional agreements in Africa and Asia for measures to strengthen efforts to combatforest crime (Humphreys, 2006).

Box 3.3 Forest Sector GovernanceForest sector governance refers to the ways in which officials and institutions(both formal and informal) acquire and exercise authority in the management of

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More recently, the U.S. took the step to ban illegal logging with the Combat IllegalLogging Act. This expands the Lacey Act, which not only condemns illegal exploitationof certain organisms within the U.S., but now denounces the importation of certainorganisms that were obtained in a manner against a foreign law. This Act provides asignificant step towards a supply-side measure to stop illegal logging globally and sharethe burden of enforcement. Recognizing the significant increases in demand for wood,now and in the future, the global wood market and the associated trade is undergoingrapid changes putting considerable and increasing pressure on the world’s remainingnatural forests. For example, in China total forest-products imports rose from 40 millioncubic meters to almost 150 million cubic meters between 1997 and 2005 (World Bank,2008). It is expected that demand, both domestic and from outside the country, willcontinue to rise, and forest-product imports to China are likely to double within thenext 10 years. This growth in trade, both domestically and internationally, legally aswell as illegally, offers strong incentives for public and private gains with severepotential risks of timber revenue channeled away from national development efforts,particularly from communities living in or near the forests. To counterbalance thesechallenges requires, amongst other measures such as afforestation, substantialimprovements in forest law enforcement and governance as part of a coherent approachthat is critical to capturing the full potential of forests in a sustainable manner.

the resources of the sector to sustain and improve the welfare and quality of lifefor those whose livelihood depend on the sector. Good governance is fundamentalto achieving positive and sustained development outcomes, including efficiencyof resource management, increased contribution to economic growth and toenvironmental services, and equitable distribution of benefits.

Good governance is characterized by predictable, open, and informed policymaking based on transparent processes, a bureaucracy imbued with aprofessional ethos, an executive arm of government accountable for its actions,and a strong civil society participating in decisions related to sector managementand in other public affairs – and all behavior under the rule of law.

Poor governance can have significant negative impacts on the environment,poverty reduction and social development. Poor governance in the forest sectorimpedes sustainable forest management, harms forest-dependent communitiesand distort forest economies (World Bank, 2008).

Box 3.4 Forests and Trade – RussiaSince the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Siberian forests have been underincreasing threat from illegal logging. Timber is sent by sea to Japan, throughthe Black Sea to Europe, from northwest Russia into Scandinavia, and by landinto China. China both imports timber and exports timber products; anestimated two-thirds of its timber imports are re-exported. Chinese sawmillsthat process Russian timber often then export it to Japan and the U.S.(Humphreys, 2006). While Russia’s forests are not as rich in biodiversity as

Forests, Livelihood and Human HealthImportant progress has been made in improving overall living standards in a significantnumber of developing countries. Over the past 40 years, child mortality rates indeveloping countries have dropped by more than a half, and malnutrition rates havedeclined by almost one-third. Despite these positive trends, poverty persists in manycountries: 1.2 billion people live on less than a US$1 a day; 2.8 billion people live onless than US$2 a day (World Bank, 2008b). Mounting evidence demonstrates thatpoverty – especially in rural areas – can be reduced only by sustainably managingnatural resources both for the income they generate and for the environmental servicesthey provide. The forests of the world are one of the most important of these naturalresources. In general, forests provide support for nearly half of the 2.8 billion living onUS$2 or less a day. Thus, forests have a substantial potential in contributing to theUnited Nations Millennium Development Goals (Kaimowitz, 2008b).

The linkages between forest outcomes and poverty may not always be direct, nor evenevident in some cases. The economic benefits of forests are frequently undervalued, andthose benefits often bypass the poor, because of existing land tenure and participationconditions. In some cases, the poor would benefit from the removal of forests andconversion of forests to other land uses (such as agriculture) and in some of these cases,this conversion would be justified from a broader and economic and environmentalperspective as well. However, decision-makers must recognize the long-termimplications of changing to natural systems, especially for the poor, who typicallydepend upon their maintenance of these systems than others. There is considerablepotential for the poor to benefit much more from different types of forest use, but thiswill occur in fact only if the right policies, institutions, and implementation capacity toinclude them are in place.

Around the world, forests have been used in a variety of manners to support subsistencelivelihoods. Today the world is more urbanized than ever before, but it is estimatedthat globally nearly 350 million people, 60 million of which are indigenous, dependheavily on forests in a variety of ways for their subsistence. Poor rural families dependheavily on “wild” resources; in both forest-poor and forest-rich contexts, forest productsare used to fuel, food, medicines, construction materials, fertilizers and cash. Relianceon these sources often increases in times of personal, family or social hardship, withthese wild resources being especially important for women, children, and ethnic

many tropical forests, they still provide important habitat for many species andthey hold large amounts of carbon above and below ground. As of 2005, Russiahad over 808,000,000 hectares of forested land, with a slightly negative rate ofannual change. Of this, 622,000,000 are designated primarily for production(FAO, 2007). In the Northwestern forests, false claims on customs declarationsallow high-value species to be exported as a low-value species, and then whenexported to Sweden and Finland sold at a higher value, often competing withEuropean forestry. The effect of this illegal logging has been lower roundwoodprices in both Europe and Russia (World Bank, 2008).

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minorities. In many cases, as people get richer, they use and sell fewer of the forestproducts that are considered inferior goods. However, most people in Sub-SaharanAfrica have not gotten richer, resulting in growing markets for all forest products aspopulations and urbanization increase. Smallholders living in forest margins in diverseparts of the world earn 10-25 per cent of their household incomes from nontimber forestproducts, many of which are either undervalued or omitted completely fromconventional economic statistics. (World Bank, 2008).

In developing countries alone about 1.2 billion people depend on agroforestry farmingsystems that contribute to agricultural productivity and generate income (World Bank,2008). The chronically poor tend to live disproportionately in rural areas, leading to anoverlap of severe rural poverty and remaining natural forests in developing countries.While there are many areas of chronic poverty without forests, and some forest areaswithout chronic poverty, the reality is that the correlation between forests and povertyis strong (Sunderlin et al, 2005). The convergence of the poor and forests is a result ofmany factors. Forests tend to be located in remote areas where the reach of the marketeconomically is inhibited and technological progress is slow. Often, investments bynational governments in rural areas is minimal. Furthermore, primordial poverty existsamong traditional indigenous peoples whose dependence on forests is deeply rooted inhistory and long predates modern social change. And because access to them is open,forests are a magnet for the poor, as they provide new agricultural lands and economicopportunities for people with limited options. Commonly, forest-dependent people tendto be politically weak or powerless (Sunderlin et.al., 2006).

The heavy reliance of forest dwellers on forest resources for agricultural production,gathering of fuel wood, or other activities that gain economic returns, lead some policy-makers to believe that poverty and deforestation go hand in hand, creating a cycle thatspirals downward (Arnold and Bird, 1999). However, this theory is widely challenged,with some observers noting the difference between poverty causing deforestation andarguing that the “poor are agents of deforestation, and that the causes of poverty lie indeeper structural factors.” (Humphreys, 2006: 11; Chomitz, 2007). Others argue thatwealthier landholders and their agricultural, logging, and industrial pursuits alsocontribute to destruction of forested areas (TFD, 2008).

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The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that in 2008 more than 2 billionpeople relied on wood energy as their dominant energy source. Fuel wood is used tocook food, make charcoal or produce biofuels (FAO, 2008). Collecting fuel wood isphysically hard and time-consuming work, an arduous burden particularly on womenwho typically are also responsible for collecting water, caring for children, doingagricultural work, and handling the myriad other tasks that make up the day ofdeveloping world women. As pressures on forests develop, the distances traveled,collection times, and other demands on women also increase (World Bank, 2008c).

Ever since the late 1970s, concern over the “fuel wood crises” facing the world’s poorhas been widespread (Agrawal, 2001). Some populations rely heavily on charcoal andwood for fuel, such as in Haiti, where it is one of the main causes of the country’sdeforestation (World Bank, 2008). Many reforestation efforts fail because the need forwood drives people to cut down trees before they have a chance to mature. As a studyabout forest governance suggests “the goal of forest conservation has historically notbeen met when in conflict with land use changes driven by demand for food, fuel, andprofit,” leading to the need for better governance (Agrawal et.al., 2008: 1462).

As noted earlier, the plight of indigenous peoples and other forest dependent peoples isalso closely tied to forests. Their ancestry, spiritual relationships, and culture are deeplyintegrated with the forested regions they live in. In Brazil, as one example, theindigenous rights movement grew simultaneously with the environmental movementspurred by concern over the deforestation of their homeland (Domask, 1998). Tropicaldeforestation stimulated international concern for indigenous livelihood interests,including the ability to retain their identities, uphold their rights, and protect access andtenure to lands. In frontier areas, disagreements and threats often erupt over land-usedecisions, especially where indigenous peoples are excluded from government decision-making (Domask, 1998).

Box 3.5 Non-Timber Forest Products• Sierra Leone is one of the many places where people forage for fruit and nutsand hunt for game meat (Seeland, 1997: 90).

• In the Pangi Valley of India, medicinal plants and herbs were collected bymore than 86% of the population involved in a survey. In this remote area, thealternative income provided by selling these plants composes between 10 and20% of household cash income (World Bank, 2008).

• Mexico’s southern mountainous region has both a large indigenouspopulation and high rates of poverty. Roughly three quarters of Mexico’s forestsare communally-owned ejidos, many of which engage in alternative livelihoodsthat also allow them to leave the forests intact. Activities such as gatheringmushrooms, collecting resin, and bottling water are used to provide greaterquality of life without degrading the natural resource base (World Bank, 2008).

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Box 3.6 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous PeoplesIn October 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the UNDeclaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The declaration, while non-binding, sets international standards for the protection and promotion of theindividual and collective rights of Indigenous Peoples, including their rights toland and natural resources, and advocates a human rights-based approach todevelopment as it applies to Indigenous Peoples (UNGA, 2007a).

Closely related to the issue of human livelihoods are the linkages between forests andhuman health. The health concerns of the world’s 350 million forest dwellers areintertwined with their surrounding ecosystem, which provides food for nutrition, waterfor drinking, and fuel for cooking. Forests are important repositories of medicinalcompounds from wild organisms (Bryant, 2002). This role is the basis for manyarguments for rainforest conservation (Seters, 1997). Forest medicines offer severalbenefits. First, their continuing use represents a knowledge resource of considerablesignificance for the world’s current and future pharmacopoeia. Second, the plants andanimals themselves are the physical physical reservoir for this future use. Third, theyrepresent the only pharmacy available in remote areas where ‘modern’ medicine is notavailable. Cunningham (1993) estimates that 70-80 per cent of Africans consulttraditional medicinal practitioners for health care and expects the demand to rise.

A wealth of indigenous and local knowledge about forest medicines exists (Anyiam,1995). The economic value of traditional medicines is considerable but difficult toquantify. At the most disaggregated level, Kaimowitz (2005) reports that USD 75 billionof pharmaceuticals of natural origin are sold each year. A vast literature considers thedistribution of profits coming from forest medicines. Shanley and Luz (2003) haveargued that global pharmaceutical development receives much greater attention thanthe needs of local communities. Although pharmaceutical companies incur significantexpenses in discovery, laboratory research, processing, and distribution there remainsa vast asymmetry in the distribution of profits between the companies and the forestcommunities in and around medicinal plant collection areas (Mendelsohn and Balick,1995). The World Conservation Union (IUCN) concludes that more than 20,000 speciesare used as medicine worldwide, and half of these are under threat of extinction. Manyauthors have recounted the threats to medicinal plants from habitat destruction,overharvesting, increasing commercialization, and loss of indigenous knowledge, as wellas population increase, forest fires, shifting cultivation, and overgrazing (Chivian andSullivan, 2002)

Forests can also have a negative impact on health. Fuel wood used for cooking, asreferred to above, poses respiratory health hazards, especially for women and children(Colfer, Sheil, and Kishi, 2006). Smoke and haze also originate from forest fires, suchas the Indonesian fires of 1997-98, which have caused respiratory problems for peoplein Malaysia and Singapore, causing an estimated $148 million in health costs(Applegate, et al., 2002).

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The literature on the linkages between forests and human health is growing; however,this issue has not been elevated to an international level from a governance perspective.It is thought that some viral diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, originated in the forests orforest animals. There have been mixed results as to whether deforestation decreases thepathogens and vectors because of habitat destruction or whether the level of diseasemore often increases after cutting down the trees (Colfer, Sheil, and Kishi 2006).Additionally, disease and health impacts on forest inhabitants are often intertwinedwith nutrition, gender inequities, poverty, and political conflict, making causalrelationships difficult to prove (Colfer, Sheil, and Kishi, 2006). Despite the importantlinkages between forests, health and livelihoods, the international health regime, asone possible avenue, has dealt hardly with forests directly.

Box 3.7 Forest, livelihoods and Human Health – Indonesian FiresForests affect health and livelihoods in a variety of ways, and one extremeexample of negative health impacts has arisen in Indonesia. As of mid-2000, anestimated 30 million Indonesian people depended directly on forests for theirlivelihoods. These populations undertake traditional activities like fishing,hunting, and cultivating crops; they also gather non-timber forest products suchas rattan and honey. Furthermore, millions of people rely on plants and herbsfrom these forests for medicines. Indonesia’s forests have been and still arethreatened by illegal logging and the conversion of forested lands. The mostbiodiverse forests in Indonesia—the lowland tropical forests—are the mostthreatened (FWI/GFW 2002). By 2000, 40 per cent of the forests that existed in1950 had been cleared, and the rate of forest loss was still accelerating. Thisdeforestation took place primarily under the government of President Suharto,who ruled Indonesia from 1967 to 1998. An important implication is that loggedforests, degraded forests, and scrub on deforested land are more fire-prone thanundisturbed tropical moist forests, and so the degradation that took place underSuharto, when combined with droughts associated with El Nino, fueled massiveforest fires. Forest fires have occurred naturally in the region throughout history,but the recent deforestation and degradation have meant that fires are no longersmall, with a slow spread, but instead have been massive outbreaks (FWI/GFW2002). Five major fire events have occurred since 1982, causing haze that affectsSoutheast Asia, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia itself. The fires create cloudsof noxious gases that darken skies, pollute the air, and release harmfulgreenhouse gases. This transboundary haze has caused adverse health effectsfor 20-70 million people, 40,000 of which have been hospitalized for respiratoryand other haze-related ailments. Despite the widespread health effects, theIndonesian government has not dealt with forest use and conversion in a waythat adequately addresses the problem (World Bank, 2008).

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Issues and Linkages

Forests and SecurityWhile forests contribute positively to human security through the provision of basicresources, they can also have the opposite effect in some regions by contributing toviolent conflict (World Bank, 2008). The past twenty years has seen violent conflicts inapproximately 40 per cent of the world’s tropical forested countries, including those inLatin America, Africa, and South East Asia (CIFOR, 2008). One of the drivers of theseconflicts include trade in illegally harvested forest resources, including timber and plantspecies to finance insurrections by rebel groups or to pay for weapons to maintain power,the use of forests for drug cultivation and distribution, and unresolved or unenforcedland rights claims.

The impacts of forest-related conflicts pose a direct security threat to those living inthe region and can have destabilizing effects in neighboring regions or in countrieslinked by trade relationships (CIFOR, 2008). In the 1980s, the interest of developedcountries in illegal logging was perceived by some developing countries as either tradebarriers in disguise or as an attempt to decrease the sovereignty rights by making it aninternational rather than a domestic issue (Humphreys, 1996). More recently, growingconcern over environmental degradation and human rights violations associated withtrade in illegally harvested forest products, including timber and illicit drugs, has leadto increased ad-hoc international intervention into security-related forest issuesworldwide. For example, illegal logging, as noted earlier, has perpetuated violentconflict in countries including, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia,Liberia, Myanmar, and Sierra Leone (CIFOR, 2008).

Conflict timber can be a source of violence between loggers, communities, andgovernment officials who all lay some claim to the resource (Jarvie et al., 2003). Conflicttimber often heightens or prolongs existing crisis, because combatants can quickly andeasily accumulate a significant amount of capital for war from conflict timber (OECD,2005). During conflicts in West Africa, Liberia and Sierra Leon were significantlydeforested by the Liberian government to finance weapons. This use of naturalresources, such as illegally harvested wildlife, timber, petroleum, minerals and blooddiamonds have been occurring at increasing levels in many parts of the world. TheWorld Trade Organization has largely ignored this destructive form of illegal resourceexploitation. In some countries, trade in illegal timber, as analyzed above, reaches highinto the executive government powers, as can be noticed from Liberia’s past experiencewhen illegal timber trade was elevated to the Presidential level.

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In addition to illegal logging, forest governance, when addressing security concerns,must also deal with other illegal activities occurring in forests, such as illicit drugcultivation. Since these activities often occur in remote areas and removed from theforces of the law government authorities located in urban areas far from these forestregions lose control. In some cases, government officials are engaged in drawn-out, andsometimes violent, conflict with self-appointed leaders or armed groups over control ofthe region.

In Colombia, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) occupy an estimated500,000 square kilometers of Colombia’s tropical forest. Since the early 1980’sColombia’s government, with periodic assistance from the United States, has worked toend FARC’s control over the region and curtail trade of illicit drugs cultivated inColombia’s forest regions (FAO, 2005). Large areas of tropical forest regions in countriesincluding Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Laos, Myanmar are cleared each year for illicit drugcultivation, primarily coca and opium. The clearing of land for drug cultivation, whichis often done by using slash and burn approaches, has significant environmental impactsincluding habitat destruction, loss of biodiversity, and air and water quality degradation.Illicit drug cultivation also threatens human security and human well-being in bothdrug producing and drug consuming regions of the world.

Conflicts over forestland tenure rights can also create instability, foster violence, andthreaten human security. Forestland tenure conflicts are related to how forest resourcesare used, including rights to use the land, rights to control how land is used, and rightsto transfer use of the land. Conflicts are also related to who is granted the rights to useforest resources, including a private party, a community, everyone, or the state(FAO, 2005).

Box 3.8 Forests and Security – LiberiaForestry made up half of Liberia’s exports in 2002, but the UN Security Councilbanned the export of forest products from the country due to the widespreadhuman rights abuses associated with the trade. During two decades, ongoingconflict caused the economy to collapse, but timber remained critical and fundedconflict throughout the country and led to the coinage of the phrase “conflicttimber” (Blundell 2005).

Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia, distributed logging concessionsto warlords and a member of the Ukrainian mafia, and the Oriental TimberCompany—conducted arms deals on his behalf. Private security forces werehired to protect logging interests, and human rights abuses and massacresresulted. The violence tied to Taylor’s logging operations reached unprecedentedlevels, and in 2003 the U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on all Liberiantimber (China, the largest importer of Liberian timber, tried to block thesanctions). Shortly afterward, Taylor’s regime collapsed. Even despite thedownfall of Taylor, the UN is still concerned that in the future conflict could berelated to the timber trade and allocation of resources (Blundell, 2005).

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Forest tenure conflicts often arise in areas where pressures by government or theprivate sector to develop forestland for industrial, agricultural, or residential usesthreaten traditionally held forest use rights by indigenous or forest dwellingcommunities (World Bank, 2008). In forest areas including Brazil, Bolivia, andIndonesia, conflicts between forest dwellers and government or private sector agentshas resulted in threats, intimidation, and loss of human life (World Bank, 2008).

The linkages between forests and human security are multi-dimensional and subjectiveto a complex set of considerations, such as economic and trade, governance,environmental and human rights issues. Adding to the complexity, forest-relatedconflicts are not always motivated by the use of forest resources themselves; sometimesforest resources are tools used to perpetuate conflicts stemming from ideological, legal,rights-based, or other grievances (World Bank, 2008). Like other commodities, such asminerals and diamond, assets generated from illegal timber, can fuel guerilla warfareagainst ruling parties. As a result, forests-related security issue cannot be efficientlyand adequately addressed without considering a full range of economic, environmental,social factors that are in play.

Forests and BiodiversityThe linkages between forests and biodiversity are widely acknowledged. Forests arehome to at least 80 percent of the world’s remaining terrestrial biodiversity and are amajor carbon sink regulating climate change (World Bank, 2008). Forests also help tomaintain the fertility of the soil, project watersheds, and reduce the risk of naturaldisasters, such as floods and landslides. Many commentators have long observed thatalong with other challenges global deforestation and degradation threaten biodiversityand forest-related ecological services. The rise of tropical deforestation and degradationcoupled with increasing demand for forest resources put a greater emphasis on forests

Box 3.9 Typology of property rightsProperty rights can be viewed as reflective of social relations. Property rightsare rules that govern relations between individuals with respect to property andthey should therefore be defined by the community or the state to which suchindividuals belong. Most important for sustainable development is that propertyrights are deemed secure A common typology of property rights distinguishedamong private, common and public or state property rights:

- Private property rights: Individual or “legal individual” holds most if not allthe rights. Property can be leased under a contract to a third party

- Common property rights: Group (for example, community) holds rights. Groupcan manage property and exclude others. Rules are important to manage anddistribute resources

- Public or state property rights: State holds the bundle of rightsSource: World Bank, 2008

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as a biodiversity resource. In humid and sub-humid tropical countries, themismanagement of woodlands contributes to significant soil losses estimated to be themonetary equivalent to about 10 percent of their annual agricultural gross domesticproduct (GDP) (Bhargava, 2006).

Forest biodiversity has value for four basic reasons: utilitarian, aesthetic, moral, andecological (Botkin and Talbot, 1992). The utilitarian justification for biodiversity meansthat there are products to be obtained from natural ecological systems that can providedirect economic or social benefit. The aesthetic justification for conserving andsustainably using biodiversity refers to the value that people face on seeing, hearing,touching – experiencing – nature and its diversity of life forms. The moral justificationrefers to the belief, as stated in the UN General Assembly World Charter for Nature1982, that species have a moral right, intrinsic value, to exist. Lastly, the ecologicaljustification means that diversity is important to the persistence of ecological systems,including forest ecosystems.

Forests have many properties, related to their high rates of primary productivity andbiodiversity, which distinguish them ecologically from other ecosystems. In the annexto decision II/9, the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversityrecognized that “Forest biological diversity results from evolutionary processes overthousands and even millions of years which, in themselves, are driven by ecologicalforces such as climate, fire, competition and disturbance. Furthermore, the diversity offorest ecosystems (in both physical and biological features) results in high levels ofadaptation, a feature of forest ecosystems which is an integral component of theirbiological diversity. Within specific forest ecosystems, the maintenance of ecologicalprocesses is dependent upon the maintenance of their biological diversity”. Forests arecomprised of multiple ecosystems that are associated with variable microclimateconditions across broad landscapes (Thompson, 2009).

Depending on the capacity of the forests to cope with the degree of change, thecharacteristic taxonomic composition, vegetation structure, and rates of ecosystemprocesses may or may not be altered. Forest ecosystems may change in response todisturbances, and the new state may or may not supply the same goods and services asthe original state. Further, if species diversity is positively related to stability andresilience of forest systems, then species losses will likely have consequences for thelong-term production of goods and services. Biodiversity is often considered, especiallywithin the forest management community, as simply a list of species present at alocation. The term can also be used in the context of providing habitats for species ofsome particular value of interests to people, and in this sense biodiversity is a ‘good’produced by the ecosystem (Thompson, 2009).

As we learned from the wedge diagram in chapter 2, particularly in the 1980s concernover biodiversity loss in tropical forests provoked an explosion of international interestover deforestation and degradation (Humphreys, 1996). During this period forestconservation was understood to mean ‘no use,’ recognizing its intrinsic value ofconserving biodiversity and preventing species extinction.

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Box 3.10 The World Bank’s Revised Forest StrategyThe initial rationale for the Bank to engage in forestry sector in the 1970s wasbased on addressing worldwide declining wood supplies and the dependence ofthe rural poor on wood energy. Following a period of strong criticism of civilsociety, especially environmental NGOs, who regarded World Bank investmentsas strong contributors to global forest dynamics, the Bank’s engagement inproductive forest management decreased significantly. In the early 1980s theWorld Bank received much international criticism for having funded projectsthat resulted in severe deforestation in the Amazon, Congo and Malaysia (Price,1989). A controversy over a forest sector loan to Ivory coast in 1990, which NGOsclaimed would open 0.5 million hectares of rainforest to logging, caused the WorldBank to suspend all new forestry lending while a more environmentally friendlypolicy was being prepared.

When the World Bank reformed its forest strategy in 1991, its new resourceconservation strategy sent a strong message to the international community thatthe World Bank was concerned with forest conservation issues, and not justdevelopment. A critical component of the World Bank strategy was “not tofinance commercial logging operations or purchasing of logging equipment foruse in primary tropical moist forest.” (World Bank, 1991). The strategy reflectedrising international concern about the rate of tropical deforestation and stronglyemphasized the need to preserve intact forest areas. While the 1991 Strategyrecognized the role that forests could play in poverty reduction and theimportance of policy reforms in containing deforestation, its hallmark was astrong commitment not to finance commercial logging in primary tropical moistforests.

In practice, this emphasis on safeguarding forests has meant that little attentionwas paid to the active management of natural forests in the tropics and thereforeto the poverty-reduction potential of forests. In 2002 the World Bank adopted arevised Forests Strategy, integrating the different dimensions of sustainabledevelopment, which allows the World Bank to engage more proactively in theforest sector to help attain the goal of poverty reduction without jeopardizingforests environmental and economic values intrinsic to sustainable development.The revised strategy was founded on three equally important and interrelatedpillars:

• Harnessing the potential of forests to reduce poverty in a sustainable manner

• Integrating forests more effectively into sustainable development

• Protecting vital local and global environmental services and values

The 2002 Forests Strategy marked a shift from outright prohibition of World

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Bank financing of commercial logging operations in primary tropical moistforests to an approach of improved forest management with targetedconservation of critical natural habitats in all types of forests and as such aimsto ensure an integrative approach to sustainable forest management (WorldBank, 2004).

While the important contributions of forests to ecosystems is widely acknowledged bythe scientific community, the monetary value of the loss of ecosystem services ornegative externality in forests is not commonly calculated or paid for by forest resourceusers. However, as we will examine in more detail in Chapter 5, there are someemerging schemes and policies of services and products involving payment forecosystem services (PES). These utilize the competencies of the market to minimizenegative externalities that result from “uncharged” use of common goods by creatinga market for environmental goods and services (PROFOR, 2007). This emerging trendgives land-holders more options, and possibly incentives, to inform their land-usedecisions. Watershed protection is an important service involving forests and hasreceived considerable attention for payment schemes. These schemes involve paymentsto upstream land users for improving water quality and quantity through appropriateland-use practices. Such arrangements tend to be most effective in small watersheds,where service providers and beneficiaries are able to interact and the information flowis relatively smooth. At larger scales, more complex arrangements become morenecessary. In most cases, the payments are from utility companies to land users(FAO, 2009).

Box 3.11 Costa Rica’s Payment for Environmental Services ProgramCosta Rica has one of the most renowned incentive programs to conserve forestedland. Although the country a high deforestation rate in the 1970s and 1980s duemostly to the expansion of cattle ranching, the heightened internationalawareness of deforestation and the nascent ecotourism industry providedimpetus for protecting privately-owned forests. In the mid-1990s, the countryexpanded an incentive program that encouraged reforestation for timberproduction to include support for conservation and sustainable forestmanagement. Shortly after, the program began to pay individual landholders forthe environmental services their land provided, namely carbon sequestration,hydrological services, biodiversity conservation, and scenic beauty (Kaimowitz,2008).

The Forestry Law, Law 7575, was passed by the Costa Rican national assemblyin 1996, establishing the legal and institutional framework for this Payment forEnvironmental Services (PES). Law 7575 also established the National Fundfor Forest Financing (FONAFIFO), a semi-autonomous agency with both publicand private sector members on its board. FONAFIFO handles the majority of the

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responsibilities associated with this program; it designs the procedures, collectsfunds from various sources, and keeps the records and statistics. In 2003, it alsoadded the functions of directly receiving applications from landowners, signingcontracts, and monitoring compliance. In addition, certified foresters, calledregents, help landowners with developing their forestry plans, applying for funds,and monitoring compliance (Pagiola, 2006).

The PES program pays landholders $240 per hectare to keep their land forestsfor five years, which works out to be about $48 per hectare per year for five yearsif they meet their annual commitments. To participate, landholders must makea forest management plan that lays out steps to avoid fires, hunting, grazing,and logging in the forest. From 1997 to 2006, 6,062 contracts were signedbetween the Costa Rican government and private landholders for a combinationof conserving natural forest, managing forests, reforesting, and establishing agro-forestry systems, resulting in 471,392 hectares of forest in conservation and28,066 hectares in sustainable management (Kaimowitz, 2008). Since 1998, 90%of the contracts were in strict management (Pagiola, 2006).

For this program, over $200 million was invested over the last decade(Kaimowitz, 2008), with transaction costs for FONAFIFO and regents consumingbetween 19% and 25% of the total program cost (Wunder, 2006). These funds aremostly from a gasoline tax, and the rest is from a combination of water users, theGerman and Norwegian governments, World Bank loans, the GlobalEnvironment Facility, and European companies (Pagiola 2006). Even with thediverse sources of funding, there have only been sufficient funds to cover roughlyone third of the land-owners that want to participate (Kaimowitz. 2008).

The idea for PES was originally conceived for individual ecosystem functions, such asbiodiversity and watershed protection. As the dialogue on forests has evolved, whileavoiding deforestation has remained important from a biodiversity perspective,particularly forest carbon sequestration has become more attractive from a politicalstance.

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Forests and Climate ChangeClimate change represents yet another strand in the web of linkages constituting thesystem of Global Forest Governance and one that is becoming increasingly important.Both the Stern Review (Great Britain Treasury, 2007) and the IPCC report (2007)contributed to shifting the political attention and the international forest agenda towardthe notion that forests can contribute to a cost-effective climate change mitigationmechanism. However, notwithstanding this opportunity, given the scale of emissionsfrom forests, forest mitigation measures not only provide large prospects but also adaunting task. Giving testimony to this, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moonstated:

“Climate change cannot be won without the world’s forests. This, however, will be acomplex and challenging feat in terms of setting up incentive structures andimplementation mechanisms, and will require a long-term commitment. Butnonetheless, it is one of the best large-scale investments we can make against climatechange that could result in an equally large scale dividend.” (Ki-Moon, 2008)

Box 3.12 Forests and Biodiversity – Congo BasinForests ecosystems house more biodiversity than any other terrestrialecosystems, and in particular, tropical forests are rich in plant and animal species.The Congo Basin is the second largest contiguous tropical rainforest in the world,after the Amazon, and it composes a quarter of the world’s tropical rainforests.Roughly 24 million people live in the Congo Basin, spread among six countries(CBFS, 2008). Even though Africa is urbanizing at a rapid rate, the ruralpopulation is still rising, putting pressures on areas such as the Congo. TheBasin is made up of varied ecosystems, from savannas to forests and from riversto swamps, each with its own species. To protect these critical ecosystems, inJohannesburg in 2002 a partnership of governments, civil society, and privateactors created a non-binding agreement to sustainably use this land.

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As the global sustainable development agenda has turned to focus on climate changemitigation in the 21st century, linkages between forests and climate change havebecome a prominent lens through which forests are viewed.

Until recently, political discussions about global warming paid scant attention to forests.Most policymakers viewed emissions resulting from forest loss as hard to measure,monitor, and control. They felt any benefit from efforts to reduce them would be short-lived and suffer considerable leakage (i.e. less carbon emissions in one place would leadto more emissions someplace else). Many worried that focusing on tropical deforestationwould reduce pressure on richer countries to lower their emissions. There were fearsthat including forests in trading schemes would flood the carbon markets and makeother mitigation measures unprofitable (Lejour and Manders, 1999). As a result, theKyoto Protocol provided few incentives for afforestation and reforestation and none tomaintain existing forests (Eliasch, 2008). Nonetheless, as we will analyze in more detailin chapter 5, recent interest in measures to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation andDegradation (REDD) has increased markedly. Forest rich developing countries havecome to realize that they can contribute to addressing the climate problem throughimproved management of their forests, and that it is increasingly likely that there willbe payments for the important ecosystem service of carbon storage. Analysts, such asStern, and policy-makers alike have realized that the emission reductions needed toavert catastrophic climate change are so large they will be almost impossible to achievewithout reducing forest loss (Kaimowitz, 2008).

By the end of 2008, the Eliasch Review reinforced the central proposition of the SternReport that urgent action to tackle the loss of global forests is a critical need to be acentral part of any future international deal on climate change. It claims that a dealthat provides international forest financing not only reduces carbon emissionssignificantly, but also benefit developing countries, support poverty reduction and helppreserve biodiversity and other forest services. “If the international community doesnothing to reduce deforestation estimates indicate that the global economic cost ofclimate change caused by deforestation could reach USD 1 trillion a year by 2100”(Eliasch Review, 2008).

The latest IPCC report indicates that the world must stabilize the atmosphericconcentration of greenhouse gases at 450 ppm CO2e to avoid temperature increasesabove 2 degrees Celsius (IPCC, 2007). Recent research indicates that this will requirethe world to reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions, relative to business as usual, byapproximately 17 Gt by 2020 (McKinsey, 2009). Recent IPCC reports indicate that landuse change, mainly deforestation, contributes to about 20 % of the greenhouse gasemissions from anthropogenic sources between 1989 and 1998 (IPCC 2000, 2007). Ascan be seen in the figure below, a more nuanced interpretation reads that regions varysubstantially in their contribution to CO2 emissions stemming from deforestation anddegradation.

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Figure 3.2 CO2 emissions from land use change, 2005 (Source: CPF, 2008)

The amount of carbon that a forest can store depends on the type and characteristicsof the forest. Tropical forests, accounting for approximately 40 per cent of the world’sforest area, hold more carbon than temperature zones and boreal forests combined(Bonan, 2008). Forests and other terrestrial sinks annually absorb 2.6 GtC, whiledeforestation and land-use activities emit approximately 1.6GtC, significantly reducingthe role forests play as a net carbon sink (IPCC, 2007). The figure below shows thesimultaneous functions of forests to act as a source of emissions and a sink throughsequestration. Tropical forests have remained in the international limelight partiallybecause they contain twice the carbon stock in their vegetation and soils than any otherbiome or the atmosphere (LULUCF SPM).

Figure 3.3 Forest Carbon Cycle Source: Blaser and Robledo 2008.

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Another manner in which forests interact with the carbon cycle is through substitution(TFD, 2008b). Carbon is stored in forest wood products produced from the timber.Since it is a renewable resource, the carbon content of forests is temporarily reducedafter harvesting, but it will regenerate. Carbon is not released into the atmosphere asit is when burned, but it can store it for decades in housing lumber or furniture. Woodcan also substitute for more energy-intensive materials, such as steel or plastics.

In addition to mitigation, forests play a key role in climate change adaptation for bothnatural ecosystems and for humans (TFD, 2008). Forest areas and their wealth ofbiodiversity provide resilience to changing precipitation and temperature. They alsohelp buffer regions from extreme weather events. Many forest communities are lessaffluent and more vulnerable to climate impacts (IUFRO, 2009).

As referred to above, international discussions are nowadays revolving around ReducingEmissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries, termed “REDD.” The basicidea behind this concept is that countries that are willing and able to reduce emissionsfrom deforestation should be financially compensated for doing so (IWG, 2009). Evenmore recently, REDD discussions have transformed to REDD+ recognizing thepotential of sustainable forest management, afforestation, reforestation and restorationof degraded lands. In addition to avoided deforestation, also other forest-relatedmitigation measures are gaining ground within the evolving REDD negotiations.However, within these ongoing negotiations, there remain strong demands by someleading forest nations and donors alike to reduce the complexity of the forest mitigationmeasures potential to avoided deforestation only.

The total forest carbon stock at any time is determined by two factors: the total forestarea, and the carbon per hectare of forests (carbon density). This means changes can bemeasured by two factors: area and carbon density. Further, one can differentiatebetween activities that reduce negative change, and those that enhance positive change.

Box 3.13 Adaptation and Coastal mangroves Coastal mangroves forests are a widely utilized resource, providing nurseries forimportant fish species, for example, and helping to protect coastal areas fromfloods and coastal storm surges. Although such ecosystems are highly valued,the area of mangrove forests declined significantly in the last half-century. Underall scenarios of climate change, coastal storms are projected to increase in mostregions. As erosion rates and the frequency or intensity of storms increase in thetropics, the coastal protection function of mangroves will become increasinglycritical. Mangroves forests, however, are themselves vulnerable to climatechange, their persistence depending on accretion rates relative to sea level. Whilemangroves appear to have adapted to sea level rises that have already occurred,it will be harder for them to do so as the sea level rises more rapidly and asconversion pressures increases.

Source: IUFRO, 2009

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This yields four conceptually different ways of boosting forest carbon stocks.These are deforestation, afforestation/reforestation (A/R), degradation, andrestoration/rehabilitation.

Table 3.2 Possible scope of REDD mitigation measures

The debate on the scope of credible activities in REDD has evolved significantly over thelast years. Initially, the focus was on ‘reducing negative change’, at first only fromdeforestation (COP-11 in 2005 in Montreal) then also from forest degradation (COP-13in 2007 in Bali). In Bali, the Parties also agreed to explore options for ‘enhancement offorest carbon stocks’, that is, to possibly also reward the ‘enhanced positive changes’through forest rehabilitation and restoration.

Enhancing the carbon stock can be viewed as the positive complement of forestdegradation – the latter reducing, the former increasing carbon densities.

Similarly, A/R can be seen as the positive complement of deforestation. In both cases,the central element is not only to stop negative changes (deforestation and forestdegradation), but to go further and reward additional positive changes (A/R, forestrestoration and rehabilitation). In the current climate change negotiations a coalitionof nations, including powerful donors, such as Norway, and forest nations, such as PNG,focus primarily on avoided deforestation measures (IWG, 2009). As the Eliasch Review(2008) notes emissions reduction targets can only be monitored effectively if carbonemissions are estimated robustly and uncertainties are managed and quantified.

Although the REDD negotiations primarily focus on tropical countries, and within thatmostly on countries with high forest cover and high deforestation (see also chapter 4),a recent Australian publication has conducted research to develop a methodology formeasuring the carbon carrying capacity of Australia’s forests and woodlands. The reportshows that these forests can make a far more significant contribution to reducinggreenhouse gas emissions and pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere thanpreviously thought. Excluding these measures from the REDD discussions, once moreshows the subjectivity of the boundary judgments, in this example of the climate changenegotiators, and also the temporary nature of boundary judgments. The study alsoclaimed that policy distinctions should be made between natural forests and plantationsas the former are more resilient to climate change and disturbances than plantations

Changes in: Reduced negative change Enhanced positivechange

Forest area (hectare) Avoided deforestation Afforestation and refor-estation (A/R)

Carbon density (carbonper hectare)

Avoided degradation Forest restoration andrehabilitation (carbonstock enhancement)

because of their genetic, taxonomic and functional biodiversity. The green carbon innatural forests is stored in a more reliable stock than that in plantation forests,especially over ecological time scales (Mackey et.al., 2008).

Economic analysis indicates that reducing net deforestation could contribute as muchas 6 Gt, or one third of the needed abatement between now and 2020. Although figuresvary considerably, the average opportunity cost per ton CO2e abated in the forestrysector is estimated to be roughly 9 euro, making it more costly than improving energyefficiency but much less costly than the typical cost of abating emissions bydecarbonizing the energy supply in developed countries (IWG, 2009).

Adding to the complexity of the system of global forest governance, an aspect which isoften overlooked in the context of forests and climate change, is the importance ofrecognizing that in many countries where REDD is likely to be important, illegal anduncontrolled forest exploitation, as noted earlier, is a major cause of forest loss anddegradation. Unless these issues of forest governance are addressed in a holistic mannerand governance capacity is improved, it is unlikely that economic incentives alone willbe successful (Saunders, 2008).

Reinforcing the tendency towards simplification, of the many forest-related climatechange mitigation proposals being discussed, relatively few address broader relatedforest-issues. Even though global forest discourse as a whole is making some progressrecognizing the myriad forest-related linkages, such as the importance of livelihoodsand biodiversity, the climate change discussions have a tendency to revert back to thesingle-issue perspective that is characteristic of the system of global forest governance(TFD, 2008c). The pervasive poverty, corruption and social tension in forest areas, asdiscussed above, have not only generated violent conflict and a concentration of forestwealth, but create a situation where new, additional investments risk, such as thosefinanced within a REDD framework, catalyzing new discord and conflict unless theyare carefully and equitably targeted (De Koning et.al., 2008). Clear rights andgovernance structures are thus not only required for investments to achieve climatechange goals, but unless they are in place there is a real risk of inadvertentlyundermining existing progress on human rights of forest dwellers (Colchester, 2008).Designing effective forest interventions is a complex task that needs more thantechnical input and will need a comprehensive approach by the internationalcommunity to become more effective (CIFOR, 2008).

As recognized in The Forest Dialogue Declaration it is important to remember thatforests are much more than pools of carbon: they house a large part of the world’sbiological wealth, perform the important role in the provision of water, and offer otherecosystem services (TFD 2008). Although the current climate change negotiations focustheir attention primarily on the mitigation potential of forests, the need for adaptationseems inevitable, even under the most conservative climate proposals. While globalforest discourse embraced the social development aspect of forest policy, the climateagenda has yet to take that step to adopt it as one of its key elements, largely becauseit is complex even without it.

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3.3 Concluding ThoughtsAs many commentators have argued, global change is needed in the way land is usedand commodities are produced. Demand for agricultural commodities and timber willcontinue to rise as the world population grows and becomes wealthier. As a result thecompeting claims for land use will increase the pressure on forests worldwide when thepotential of agricultural productivity enhancement is not captured fully. National andinternational policies will need to shift the way demand for commodities is met awayfrom deforestation and towards more efficient and sustainable methods that ensureforest nations and communities grow and prosper. Improvements in agriculturalproductivity and the sustainable management of forests need to play a key role torelease the current pressures on forests. Consumer countries, as we will examine in thenext chapters, can also provide incentives for sustainable production of timber and othercommodities through preferential procurement of sustainably-produced products andincreased consumer awareness.

It is clear that the system of global forest governance impacts much more than just theforest sector or those living in the forests. It is connected with human well being, bothfor forest and non-forest dwellers; international trade; human health; economic growthand development; natural resources and ecosystem health; and human security.Similarly, each of these related issues are connected to each other: human andenvironmental well-being is directly related to trade, economic stability, governance,and natural systems health. This complexity challenges the current system of globalforest governance and does not allow for continued “siloed” or singular lens viewpointsof forest issues. Simplification does not work when adjustments in one area tend tocreate imbalances in others (Teisman et.al., 2008). Solutions that address the climatechange mitigation potential through government-led programs may exacerbate thesituation of indigenous peoples, just as trade solutions that address the concerns of onegroup of nations may be unacceptable trade terms to another group.

For these reasons, a critical determinant for success of the system of global forestgovernance is to manage, rather than eliminate, complexity, and apply a coherentapproach to address the broad-ranging issues therein. What we have come to realize isthat in fact we must match the complexity of our management system to the complexityof the problem. As we will develop in more detail in chapter 6, this will require a newapproach if we are simultaneously and effectively to address the problem of decliningforests and the multiple issues that connect to them. As new linkages between forestsand other related issues emerge, new actors will be established, and new governanceapproaches will need to be developed. The next chapter will analyze the types of actorsthat operate within system of global forest governance with a view for providing aconceptual framework to managing the evolving complexity of the system of globalforest governance.


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Chapter 4

Actors in Global Forest Governance

Lead author: Patrick Verkooijen; Co-author: Hans Hoogeveen

4.1 IntroductionIn the previous chapters, we have highlighted how forests, as a global policy issue, raisea host of compelling governance challenges because of the nature and complexity of theissues. Forest policy tends to be particularly complex. It is by no means unique in thiscomplexity, but the multiple dimensions of complexity do require that special attentionbe paid to all the various facets of policy complexity. The sheer number, diversity,proliferation, and inter-connectedness of the actors involved in forest governance at itsmany levels is yet another key dimension of this complexity.

Global forest governance, by its very nature, includes a vast number of actors that varywidely in their type and specific interests and goals. From global institutions to localcivic groups, from national governments to indigenous peoples, from large multinationalbusinesses to smallholders dependent on forest products – forests are a key concern fora very wide range of actors, with a variety of interests and with very different, andsometimes contradictory, priorities. It is not only that there are many actors; it is alsothat there are many different types of actors (Najam, 1997). Institutions carry withthem the additional complexity that they are made up of individuals who operate asagents for larger group interests but they also have their own motivations and interests(Susskind, 1994). The plethora of institutions result in particular governancechallenges, as will be examined in chapter 5.

The aim of this chapter is to identify the major types of actors involved in the systemof global forest governance and to discuss the roles they play in the system. The purposeof doing so is not simply to demonstrate the complexity in actor constellation in thisprocess but also to highlight that this complexity – or, more precisely, the complicationsthat arise because of this complexity – impacts the efficacy of global forest governance.Effective governance requires that the tools of diplomacy are used to address andaccommodate the differing priorities and interests of different actors in a way that isconsistent both with their own priorities and with global forest priorities (Young, 1994).The more actors there are and the more varied they are, the more complex this taskbecomes. Managing actor complexity – in terms of numbers and diversity - is certainlya challenge, but it can also be an opportunity because more actors also provide moreopportunity for coalitions, cross-trade, and innovative approaches to the division ofresponsibilities and roles in a complex system (Najam, 1997). For example, as we willexamine, the involvement of a greater number and variety of non-state actors has madeforest diplomacy more daunting, but it has also raised the possibility of innovativeapproaches, including certain responsibilities in global governance being taken over by

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non-state actors with comparative advantage, for example, in market-basedmechanisms and in creating public awareness.

There is not a fix set of relevant actors in global forest governance challenges. Themanagement of actors involved in forest governance is challenging because we areconfronted with a ‘supply chain of intermediaries,’ ranging from the indigenous peoplesand local communities who make the forest their home to the global institutions thatestablish international norms for forest management; to national governments whohold sovereign rights to territory; sub-national and local institutions that actuallymanage forests on a day-to-day basis; and to a multitude of producers of forest productswho populate this governance supply chain at various levels. It is not simply that nosingle actor has the sole ‘right’ to make global forest policy, but it is also that none reallyhas the ability to do so. However, such a polycentric perspective on global forestgovernance in which various actors can be seen in participating in various decision-making spaces does not necessarily imply that the impact of these actors on the systemis equally divided amongst these actors.

In this chapter we examine the constituency of actors that make up global forestgovernance. In this, we analyze the full array of actors in the “forest system” and notonly focus on those who impact forest governance on the multilateral level. We do soby looking at three types of actors, and we will utilize three conceptual tools to describeand explain who these actors are and how they operate within the global forest system.Just as Figure 2.2 illustrates that over the years we have had to complexify ourunderstanding of the forests issue in order to come to grips with the actual complexityof the challenges, this chapter attempts to complexify our understanding of the actorsinvolved in forests governance in order to better come to grips with the real complexityof the actors involved.

This chapter highlights the characteristics of various types of actors, points out nuanceddistinctions within those types of actors and the ways those actors interact, and alsoprovides examples of how these actors influence global forest governance. We do so byproviding some illustrative examples of existing activities and initiatives that arealready going on or are looming in the near future. The chapter is divided into sectionsexamining the three broadest categories of actors – state actors, market actors, and civilsociety actors. Within each of these meta-categories we then provide a conceptualframework to help us arrive at a more nuanced sense of how actors in these sectorsactually impact the state of the world’s forests and their global governance. Ourultimate goal is to avoid falling into the same trap as previous eras of global forestgovernance by establishing an additional level of simplification of the forest issue. In lieuof another simplification, we attempt to understand the complexity, which might alertus to new innovations in global forest governance.

The chapter is organized around the notion that there are three essential types of policyactors: state actors, market actors and civil society actors. We discuss each of these inthe following three sections. We begin by looking at various kinds of state actorsinvolved in global forest governance. However, in the case of global governance there arealso inter-state organizations. We discuss these as a special case of state actors, since


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these organizations represent inter-state interests but have special dynamics of theirown beyond state-centric dynamics. The discussion on market actors employs aframework that focuses on how different market actors relate to forest products and thetype of benefits that they derive from these products. In particular we organize ourdiscussion of market actors around how they influence forest policy and governance asusers, consumers, producers and as investors. Civil society provides the third categoryof actors. These range from the smallest local NGO to large transnational CSOs thatcoordinate forest governance across the globe. Here we try to understand the role ofcivil society in global forest governance by looking at the different roles that civil societyactors play at different stages of the policy process. The purpose of this analysis is notonly to demonstrate the variety of actors involved in global forest governance, but tohighlight the implications that arise because of this variety and how those complicationsimpact the efficacy of global forest governance.

4.2 State ActorsGlobal debates on sustainable development – including on forests – have largely beencharacterized as a debate between rich and poor countries, along the North/Southdivide, or between countries of different types of forest cover (Najam, 2004). Thisdichotomous view has led to high tensions, difficult-to-bridge divisions, and a generalinability to look at the forest issue as a whole (Najam, 2004). States, as our first actor,come in many different levels of development, geographical sizes, quantities of forestcover, forest-types, and abilities to manage forest use (Maini, 2003).

Previous chapters have made the point that there are many different reasons to beinterested in forests. Indeed, different forest users have differing interests. Timbercompanies use forests for their vast wealth of valuable wood while the forest representsa home to many indigenous groups, and for those focusing on climate change forests aremajor reservoirs of carbon. Because of this, there is a need to begin thinking of forests,not around the binary divisions of poor versus rich or forested versus non-forested, butrather across various dimensions of their use and utility. One approach to do so is the‘four squares’ framework developed by Jagmohan S. Maini (2003). Figure 4.1 placeseconomic divisions and divisions along forest endowments as the two dimensions of theframework, pointing to the fact that different countries have different types of interests.The x-axis measures forest endowment while the y-axis measures per capita income.In four quadrants, the characteristics of countries are described that have a high percapita income with low forest cover, those with high income and high forest cover, thosewith low income and a high per capita of forest cover, and those with low income and alow per capita of forest cover.


Figure 4.1 Four-realities: Mapping interests and forest concernsSource: Maini, 2003; Hoogeveen et.al., 2008.

What this framework illustrates is that both per capita income and per capita forestcover form the basis of a country’s overarching interests and policy concerns withrespect to forests. Indeed, by plotting across other variables – for example, trade inforest products or forests at habitat – other groupings are also possible (Hoogeveenet.al, 2008). For the purpose of this study, an important notion, however, is that we needto look beyond simple North-South divisions and towards the actual use and utility thatstates derive from their forests to begin understanding what shapes their forestinterests and why. Maini demonstrates not only that the world’s countries do not divideamong the obvious North-South or developing-developed lines, but also that low andhigh income countries with a similar amount of forest cover may have more similarinterests than we originally thought (Hoogeveen et.al., 2008).

First used as an analytical tool, this framework helped Canada identify the likely forestagenda of various countries and identify where they converged and diverged (JagmohanS. Maini, pers. comm.). For example, countries like Indonesia and Malaysia tend toview forests primarily as instruments for economic development. Developed countrieswith similarly high forest cover, such as Norway and the United States, have moreresources to focus on the three dimensions of sustainable development, but share theinterest of the developing countries in maintaining and expanding market shares. Forthose with a low forest cover, maintaining the forests that they do have is of utmostimportance – for environmental and subsistence reasons. In that way, the Netherlandsand the Philippines may share some policy interests, as do India and the United


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Kingdom. At the same time, high income-low forest cover countries have more of aninterest in maintaining their supply of imported forest products, while low income-lowforest countries need to create new markets for forest products (Hoogeveen et.al., 2008).

Since political debates have largely centered on binary distinctions between the globalNorth and the global South, or countries with tropical forests and countries with borealand temperate forests, this approach articulates the need for a more nuanced approachthat addresses the complex needs and multiple interests of states. The current approachto diplomacy - with it tendency to reduce the complexity of the governance challengebased on a narrow framing of the overarching interests and positions - does not seemto allow for this. As noted in chapter 3, the current discussions on REDD also have thetendency for reductionism in terms of managing the complexity. A comprehensivenational REDD strategy could provide a step forwards in understanding and addressingstate interests on a multidimensional level. However, the current debate in the climatechange arena primarily focuses on REDD mitigation measures in the narrow sense:avoided deforestation.

Building upon the findings in chapter 3, figure 4.2 (below) demonstrates that amongforest tropical countries, distinct forest endowments require different forest mitigationmeasures to contribute to the climate change mitigation potential of forests. Areductionist policy approach focusing on only one particular set of forest mitigationmeasures (i.e. avoided deforestation) excludes many forest nations of the world.

Figure 4.2 Tropical countr ies’ forest endowments: Distinct situations, different approachesneededSource: Blaser and Robledo, 2008


Forest mitigation measures in high forest cover countries with historical lowdeforestation (HFLD), such as Suriname or Gabon, focus primarily on conservingforests, while countries with high forest cover countries coupled with high deforestation(HFHD), such as Indonesia and Liberia, have high potential on avoided deforestationmeasures. Low forest cover countries with low deforestation have a high potential tobenefit from afforestation and reforestation and a moderate chance of benefiting fromforest restoration or rehabilitation efforts.

The ultimate implication of the reductionist approach in the current climate changenegotiations with its focus on HFHD countries – by focusing on avoided deforestationwhile marginalizing other forest mitigation measures – is to leave out significantpotential for increasing and protecting carbon reservoirs, as well as to exclude 90percent of the rural population of the non-HFHD countries from any financialincentives to halt deforestation (Simula, 2008). However, states themselves have becomeso accustomed to reducing negotiations to unitary dimensions that dialogue amongcountries tend to become repetitive and inert as delegates repeat well-honed and well-rehearsed positions that have only marginal prospect of resulting in a governanceoutcome that effectively impacts the underlying causes of deforestation anddegradation. With the ongoing desire among decision-makers for stability and simplicityin the system a significant challenge for global forest governance to become moreeffective is the structure of negotiations itself which does not give states the incentiveto discuss issues except in narrow and well-defined contexts. The next section examinesthe challenge of policy coherence and intra-governmental coordination.

Policy Coherence and Intra-Governmental Coordination As we examined in chapter 3, forests issues are multi-faceted and complex and spreadout within the governance structures of countries resulting in significant policycoherence challenges within states. The need for intra-governmental coordinationbetween multiple agencies as well as amongst multiple policy actors within countries(such as politicians and civil servants) is a non-trivial matter for all countries, developedand developing. For developing countries, however, this is further compounded bycapacity questions as resources are stretched and other national priorities, such ashealth and education, compete with forest interests.

States are constellations of many institutions and even more individuals working invarious policy-making areas. Each of these has interests of their own. Ultimately, stateinterests are themselves the sum of the interests expressed by these agencies. Anyunderstanding of state action must comprehend both the fragmented nature of nationalgovernments, as well as the various levels of government policy, as severe challenges ofdomestic policy implementation. These challenges relate to the state’s ability tocollectively implement what the state, as a unitary actor, has agreed to dointernationally. For achieving sustainable forest management, and for countries tocomply with international commitments, those commitments must eventually beintegrated into national development strategies (CPF 2008: 12).

However, recognizing the complexity of governments and the complexity of the issues,


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a significant challenge for the system of global forest governance is the lack ofcoordination among the relevant ministries and departments engaged in forestmanagement policy with others responsible for other sectors, such as climate changepolicy, food security or biodiversity. When they do, they tend to act as policy competitors.And to the extent that forest-related agencies do coordinate their actions, they tend tobe removed in the national institutional hierarchies from the economic and securitydecision-makers. Likewise, local, regional, and national policy-makers do not naturallyapproach forest policy with identical interests and purposes (CPF, 2008). Given thislack of intra-governmental coordination it is difficult for the state to operate as a unitaryactor interacting with other states in a comprehensive fashion (Hoogeveen, 2007).

Policies in the domestic realm can also conflict with the various internationalcommitments that governments might be making in different international arenas. Onissues related to sustainable development, including forest issues, this can create seriousconstraints on the actual policy space available to any particular domestic agency. Abilateral free trade agreement, for example, may bind tariffs and other trade policies onforest products in a way that does not permit the country to effectively implement globalforest policy. On the international level, while the WTO “does not per se rule outdemand-side measures, such as import controls, it does rule out such measures that areunilaterally imposed” (Humphreys, 2006: 166). Therefore, a country can supportreducing illegally-harvested timber, but it cannot impose unilateral demand-sidemeasures. These are the types of substantial policy constraints that domesticpolicymakers within states have to contend with.

Political commitment is crucial for successful implementation of commitments agreedwithin the system of global forest governnace. An important precondition for thiscommitment is the notion that politicians have to feel ownership of the outcomes ofmultilateral negotiations. Yet, very few politicians responsible for sustainable forestmanagement issues at the domestic level ever get to participate deeply in themultilateral discussions on these subjects, which remain technocratic and bureaucraticat their core. In the current system of multilateral diplomacy, the role of politicians isdiminished to ritually intervening by reading out pre-cooked statements. In fact, mostprofessional diplomats themselves minimize the participation of domestic politiciansand work hard to ensure that their ministers do not diverge from the script preparedbeforehand. As a consequence, politicians lack a sufficient amount of ownership of theoutcome. This can result in disengagement with the global governance of forests at themultilateral level, even when politicians may have great interest in addressing forestissues at the domestic level. Box 4.1 gives one example of the nature of this challengebased on personal involvement from the authors.


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Box 4.1 Furious Politicians Leaving New YorkThe fifth session of UNFF, held in New York in May 2005, was mandated to findan agreement on the future international arrangement on forests. Towards theend of the first week of the conference there was a complete deadlock on mostissues. As often happens at this point, key negotiators were unwilling to deviatefrom their original position, uncertain about the flexibility that other delegatesmight or might not have. In the following days, positions hardened even furtherand the space to create mutual gains seemed to be diminishing even as the clockticking away rapidly.

On the Wednesday of the second week, the Ministers began arriving for the High-Level segment, where the main goal was to draft a Ministerial Declaration thatwould serve as input into the Heads of State UN Millennium Summit scheduledfor a few months later. Eventually, nearly 60 Ministers attended. The Ministerswere also invited to participate in two parallel High Level Round Tables wherethey could present their views in strictly ordered five-minute presentations. Thescope of these sessions was rather generic and completely separated from thecontentious issues that were being negotiated at the very same time by their ownbureaucrats. While the Ministers delivered their prepared written statements, thekey negotiators locked themselves up in one of the small rooms of the UN buildingto make a final effort to overcome the deadlock and negotiate a package deal. Formany Ministers – and especially those who were most knowledgeable andinterested on the specifics of the substance – being locked out of the realnegotiations and the inability to give active guidance to the delegations that theywere supposed to be leading became a major source of irritation.

Some countries requested that the Secretariat and the Chair, who came fromColombia and was a former Minister for the Environment, put the contentiousissues on the agenda of the ministerial sessions. Yet, the secretariat resisted theidea and tried to focus only on a general Ministerial Declaration. This increasedthe frustration felt by the Ministers. A number of Ministers spoke openly of havingbeen side-lined to only giving prepared-statements. The Chair and the Secretariatignored these signals and insisted that the inter-Ministerial discussions shouldfocus on the Ministerial declaration and not on contentious negotiation issues.The result was a growing disenchantment with the process by the Ministers, who– as a demonstration of their frustration – eventually decided that they were nolonger willing to work on the Ministerial Declaration.

At the closure of UNFF 5, when the key negotiators were not able to work out apackage deal on the future arrangement of forests, everybody left New York emptyhanded. In the closing plenary session many Ministers declared in unequivocalterms that they saw no need for them to come back to the Forum. As aconsequence, the UN Millennium Summit outcome document only referrednotionally to forests.


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However, there are some signs that changes to the system are possible. An example ofa more innovative approach is the organization of the high level segment of theseventeenth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) in May2009. In this case, the high level segment was organized in such a way that there wasno room for the traditional ritual of general statements. Instead, parallel interactiveroundtables were organized in which ministers were encouraged to engage interactivelyon certain themes leading to a ‘shared vision’ document endorsed by all Ministers(REF).

International OrganizationsThe influence of international organizations on global forest governance has greatlyinfluenced since the early 1980s. Although the international system is primarily asystem of states, it also operates through a web of international organizations throughwhich state interests are represented and implemented (REF). A broad range oforganizations play a central role in creating international cooperation and coordinationamong states on forest related issues, including intergovernmental organizations of theUnited Nations system and Bretton Woods institutions (Elliott, 1998: 106). Within theUnited Nations system a myriad of international organizations and institutions have amandate to address global forest governance or a subset thereof. The UNFF, asdiscussed in chapter 2, has been tasked with the most comprehensive mandate tosupport the implementation of sustainable forest management. The most significantother organizations include the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO), the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility, the United NationsEnvironment Programme (UNEP) and the International Tropical Timber Organization(ITTO). The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) for example hosts theNational Forest Programme Facility with a view to “active stakeholder participationand training, capacity building and awareness raising as well as [through] review ofongoing forest national policies” (CPF 2008: 44)

Within the Bretton Woods context, the World Bank, for example, has provided vastamounts of technical and financial assistance to countries in recent years in support ofsustainable forest management (Hajjar and Innes, 2009). The World Bank’s Programon Forests (PROFOR), as one example, helps to identify and develop conceptual toolsfor countries working toward sustainable forest management. More example the WorldBank has embarked on the establishment of a broad range of new and emerging climatechange related forest funds, such as the Forest Carbon Partnership Facilitaty (FCPF)and the Forest Investment Program (FIP).

However, IGOs also introduce their own global forest governance challenges ofstructural and mandate coherence. As institutions, they bring to the table their ownsecretariats, governance structures and programs adding to the complexity of thesystem of global forest governance:

!� Overlapping and conflicting mandates. The broad range of international organiza-tions active within the system of GFG often have overlapping mandates and sometimesconflicting mandates related to sustainable forest management. This lead often to work

programs which deals with the same issues, adding to the inefficacy of the system. Therecent development of the Growing Forest Partnership (GFP), as hosted by the WorldBank aims to link local and global initiatives and dialogues on forests and climatechange. The GFP is a partnership between FAO, IIED, IUCN and the World Bank andis questioned by many observers as having only marginal added value to the existingNFP facility given its duplicating mandate to facilitate a dialogue at the national andsubnational level.

!� Competition and “turf wars”. Secretariats tend to be in a structural fight for raisingtheir own profile within the global system. Not seldom, this competition leads to turfwars, also for financial resources. The limited resources for international organizationsto finance programs and projects for sustainable forest management has resulted infierce competition among these organizations for voluntary contributions from donors(see box 4.3).

!� Coordination and coherence. The plethora of international organizations in the sys-tem of GFG has lead to additional demands for coordination and coherence. The Collab-orative Partnership on Forests (CPF), a voluntary partnership of 14 forest-relatedinternational organizations and institutions, has strong potential to provide this coor-dination function. Unfortunately, the existing practice demonstrates the severeness ofthe competition among these organizations significantly diminishing the impact of theCPF.

They often attempt to gain, as illustrated in box 4.2 below, new responsibilities andadditional financial support. This can lead to interagency hostility, as is unfolding withinthe negotiations on a new REDD architecture, rather than constructive collaboration.These turf wars generate significant coordination challenges within the system of globalforest governance (Hoogeveen, et al. 2008).


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Box 4.2 Forest Finance and Competing claimsSeveral sources of international finance have been proposed to finance REDDefforts under a new climate change deal. This issue of how to design a newarchitecture on REDD created strong competition amongst several internationalorganizations.

During the Conference of the Parties of the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December 2006 the government ofNorway launched the International Climate and Forest Initiative providing up to2.5 billion in new and additional resources on forest carbon mitigation measures.

Partially in response to Norway’s initiative, the World Bank has spearheaded thedevelopment of REDD financing by the establishment of the Forest CarbonPartnership Facility (FCPF). The purpose of this program is to assist developingcountries in their efforts to build capacities for REDD efforts.

As REDD is likely to become a huge undertaking with substantial financialresources - including those from Norway - FAO, UNDP and UNEP havedeveloped, quickly after the launch of FCPF, the so-called UN-REDD programme.The mandate of UN-REDD is strongly overlapping the mandate of the World

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Against this backdrop of fierce interagency competition, an effort was made to managethe coordination challenges war by establishing the Collaborative Partnership onForests (CPF) in 2000 by ECOSOC resolution 2000/35. The CPF supports the UNForum on Forests (UNFF), which had also been established by ECOSOC. Thecoordination results of the CPF, as illustrated in the example above, are still mixed.

In the case of international organizations, there is also the role of secretariats as actorswithin the system of global forest governance. In the scholarly debate there are differingviews on the ways secretariats should address competing interests among actors inglobal forest governance (Susskind, 1994). Is the secretariat merely the instrument ofcarrying out states wishes or is it a legitimate actor unto itself? Very often the answerdepends on the specific individuals serving at the secretariats. Traditionally, secretariatshave played relative passive roles. At the extreme, they have been unwilling to take theinitiative, offering advice only when it is requested, keeping to a conservativeinterpretation of the mandate (Susskind, 1994: 58). Another, more adequaterepresentation, describes secretariats as pro-active actors “floating” specific proposalsduring the different phases of negotiations intervening in the policy process (Susskind,1994). Since the mandates of secretariats are relatively ambiguous and the guidance byStates is limited often the interpretation of the mandate depends on the specificindividuals serving at the secretariats. An example of the complications that can arisebecause of the muddled mandates is given in Box 4.3.

Bank’s FCPF resulting in fierce competition amongst these agencies to getadequate funding for their respective programs.

Source: Simula, 2008.

Box 4.3 A Parable - The Secretariat as GatekeeperMultilateral negotiations on the design of the international arrangements onforests have been conducted in the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF,1995-97), the International Forum on Forests (IFF, 1997-99) and the UnitedNations Forum on Forests (UNFF, 2000-07). The negotiations are facilitated withthe support of a Bureau, representing the five regional groups of the UN, and asupporting secretariat. During UNFF-7, the Netherlands was elected as chair ofthe negotiations.

In the run-up to the final session of UNFF-7 the Secretariat of the Forum wasrequested by the Bureau to draft a strategy paper on the issue of forest finance.In an informal encounter with the Chair, the Head of the UNFF Secretariatshared a personal note called ‘My dream: A Global Forest Fund’ that stated inunequivocal terms that a global forest fund should be adopted by UNFF7 andthat the UNFF Secretariat should act as theTrustee. This idea was clearlycontroversial and had been fiercely debated by countries for nearly 15 years. Itwould, therefore, be seen as politically biased if introduced formally in the UNSecretary General’s paper. Given that the mandate of the Secretariat is restricted


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4.3 Market ActorsIn current debates about the nature of sustainable development diplomacy, a growingnumber of scholars point to the emergence of private sources of authority andgovernance complementing state-centered policies of command-and control (Pattberg,2005). As we will examine through the lens of instruments in the next chapter, theinternational forest policy arena has proven to be an innovative experimental field fornew forms of governance beyond the state (Cashore, 2002). Within this setting, we arenoticing a stronger involvement of non-state actors, such as those imminent to privateforms of governance. Policy development and implementation in which governmentsare the main or sole actor are gradually complemented by approaches in which othernetworks of interconnected actors also play an important role. Business and NGOs,for example, have been the driving forces behind forest certification (Humphreys, 2006:215).

While corporate interests in general have become a key aspect of global forestgovernance much of the attention at the global level has focused on the role of

to assist the negotiations in a neutral manner, the Chair of UNFF did not approvethe circulation of the document by the Secretariat. This was not an easy decisionfor the Chair, who was from the EU (as, in fact, was the head of the secretariat)which has generally been against the idea of a global forest fund, even though theChair himself has been – and was at UNFF-7 a strong supporter of making ‘newand additional resources’ available for forest financing. Irrespective of the Chair’sown views on the subject, the principle at stake was the role of the secretariat andthe inappropriateness of the secretariat forcing a particular outcome on whichthere was no consensus. Equally important was the potential impact ofintroducing such a proposal on the larger negotiation process and the substantialrisk of the entire process being derailed, including on those points on which therewas real consensus.

Nevertheless, the head of the secretariat would not accept no for an answer andinformally approached other member of the Bureau in order to gain support forhis idea without informing the Chair. Upon learning of this unusual development,the Chair just explained to other Bureau members the reasons why he wasagainst tabling the ‘dream’ of the head of the secretariat and the risks it couldpose for the upcoming process of the negotiations. Two months before the startof the negotiations the Chair put the ‘dream’ document on the agenda of theBureau which was rejected in the Bureau meeting.

The issue is not the content of the proposal per se, but an explicit attempt by thesecretariat to push one particular outcome on a deeply contested issue. Thisincident demonstrates how an activist secretariat can undermine its own efficacyand the effectiveness of the system as a whole, even if the content of its proposalmay have some support amongst some of the members.

Source: Personal information from the authors.

multinational corporations (MNCs), without fully recognizing the various types, andrange within those types, of actors involved (Elliott, 1998).

In figure 4.3, we suggest an alternative framework of how to understand the complexityof market actors. We suggest that there are four typologies in which actors can bemaking market use of forests – as actual direct users of forest products and services, asconsumers of forest products and services where others are processing the products andservices for these consumers, as producers of forest products and services, and asinvestors investing in forests or in forest products and services. An actor can, and manydo, be more than one of these simultaneously. The purpose of this conceptual frameworkis to organize our understanding of market actors in a way that captures the complexityof uses of forests in a market context.

Figure 4.3 A Schemata of Market Actors

Forest “Users” Gaining LivelihoodsAt the center of our framework reside forest users. Forest users, for our purposesinclude people who rely on forests for their livelihoods, such indigenous peoples andlocal communities. Very often they are direct users not only of the products in theforests, but of the forest itself – sometimes as habitat. These are people who are in directtouch with the forest, receiving a direct benefit and having a direct impact. Accordingto the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development Report from 1999,“350 million of the world’s poorest depend almost entirely for their subsistence andsurvival on forests” (Krishnaswamy and Hanson 1999: 14). Another billion of theworld’s population relies on “remnant woodlands, on homestead trees, and on agro-forestry systems” for fuel wood and food (Krishnaswamy and Hanson 1999). For that

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reason, any solution to the forest issue must incorporate the interests and needs offorest users. Indigenous peoples make up a significant subgroup of forest users thathave become more prominent in recent years. Of the 350 million people living withinor adjacent to forests, 60 million are indigenous people living in the forest anddepending on it to a high degree for their subsistence (Krishnaswamy and Hanson,1999). Indigenous peoples use the forest for its many products, such as fruits andvegetables, roots and tubers, bush meat, spices, bark, and clothing materials. In additionto forest products, these groups have an aesthetic and spiritual relationship with forests,which, when combined with long-acquired traditional knowledge, promotes sustainableforest use better than many other market actors (Krishnaswamy and Hanson, 1999).

History shows that any global plans to save the world’s forests devised without the fullknowledge and agreement of indigenous peoples and local communities are doomed tofailure and such top-down policy-making often serves to reinforce the unequal statusquo in forest politics at the international, national and local levels (Griffiths, 2008). Inthis context, the development of a REDD scheme under a new global deal on climatechange schemes with its strong focus on governments faces the risk of empoweringgovernments at the expense of indigenous groups on the ground. In response to this,civil society and indigenous peoples’ organizations point out that there are considerablerisks that ill-conceived REDD interventions could harm communities and generateperverse outcomes, not least because the evolving global legal framework has so farfailed to establish intergovernmental commitments on rights and equity issues as partof a new forest and climate regime. Most REDD finance proposals continue to flow fromgovernments, international agencies, carbon finance companies and large conservationNGOs. Given the complexity and scale of the issues, most indigenous peoples and localcommunities are not well informed about REDD at the local level. A 2008 FPP-FERNreview of nine R-PINs (readiness project idea notes) submitted to the World Bank’sForest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) found that most had been developed withonly minimal or no consultation with forest peoples (REF). In the case of Paraguay,Suriname and Indonesia, indigenous organizations have protested strongly that thegovernment has so far developed REDD policies internally without consultation withindigenous peoples (REF 85). Indigenous peoples organizations also increasingly pointto the ‘moral hazard’ in REDD financial schemes as currently proposed, which wouldtarget payments (compensation) and rewards towards ‘polluters’ (forest destroyers),while effective custodians, like indigenous peoples, who are already protecting forests,would go unrewarded or receive only token benefits (Griffiths, 2008). A possibleconsequence of the tendency of the global forest governance system to reducecomplexity is to frame reducing emissions of deforestation and degradation asexclusively a carbon sequestration issue thereby excluding the interests and rights ofthose people who depend on the forests for their daily livelihoods most (TFD, 2008).

Despite the large numbers of indigenous people living in and around forests, a study in2002 revealed that 77 percent of forest land was administered by the government ratherthan by the forest users themselves (Sunderlin, Hatcher, and Liddle 2008). While somecountries have made a solid effort to turn the administration of forest land over to theindigenous people living on it, land tenure remains largely in public hands. Those


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countries, such as Brazil and Mexico, who have turned over forest management toindigenous groups have benefitted from better management as a whole. In Mexico, infact, community forestry has resulted in “greater transparency and less corruption,better forest use and protection, and improved livelihoods for local people” (World Bank2008: 36). The justification for such action rests partly in the ‘rights perspective’ onownership. These groups do not own the land on which they live, at least not in thetraditional legal sense. Instead, they have moral and historic rights to its use that areoften not reflected in the legal system. Under traditional theories of land ownership, theconcept of the “tragedy of the commons” would come into play in these circumstances,leaving the forests poorly managed and carelessly exploited. However, moral andhistoric rights give the indigenous groups an interest in treating the forest as if theyown it – resulting ultimately in lower deforestation rates (Kaimowitz 2007).

From an international law perspective, these base-level forest users need to berecognized as an important forest market actor due to international standards of humanrights. These standards “recognize the right of forest peoples to own, control, use, andpeacefully enjoy their lands, territories, and other resources and to be secure in theirmeans of subsistence” (Colchester 2008:2). Property rights for the indigenous peoplegroups involve also civil rights, political rights, economic rights, and social and culturalrights. Then for obvious reasons forest users have differing interests in and concernsabout forests than producers and consumers of, and investors in, forest products andservices. Thus, any solution for the forest issue, indeed any forest policy response tobecome effective, efficient and equitable, must consider the role of forest users.

Forest “Producers” Acquiring Commodities’Another subcategory within market actors is those entities who produce products andservices from forest resources. Forest “producers” then view forests largely as sourcesof certain commodities to produce and market lumber, fuel wood, and other importantproducts. This group is also very diverse, incorporating both small-scale fuel woodgatherers who sell their wares at domestic markets and large timber conglomeratesthat sell timber across the globe. However, with a growing number of corporationscommanding more resources than an average developing country, substantial powersare vested in fewer actors that are able to change accountability systems in their favor(Newell and Wheeler, 2006).

Globally, the formal forestry sector employs over 13 million people (FAO, 2004). In 2000,gross value-added in the forestry sector amounted to 354 billion USD (FAO 2004).Fuelwood and other wood-based products together make up approximately 2 percent ofglobal GDP, valuing about 400 million USD annually (Schmincke, 2008). Although forestindustries have been tagged as destructive, they provide a significant source ofemployment and income “especially in rural areas with limited alternatives” (Schminke,2008).

The forest industry has also changed significantly in recent years in response to marketforces, as well as public and state-based pressure to improve its environmental impact.Producers worldwide have begun to employ more environmentally friendly processes


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and technologies. Additionally, they have begun to prioritize sustainable resourcemanagement by regulating harvesting and timber transport, as well as “implementinginitiatives to produce raw material from other [resources] than natural forests”(Schminke, 2008).

Whether by extraction of forest commodities, influence over host countries, or thegeneral technological trends of the industry, forest producers play a large role in globalforest governance. However, producers do not have sole control over what they produceand how they produce it. Producers depend on the market, as defined by the demandsof their customers, and in some cases, their investors, to shape their business interests.Importantly, for our purpose, different forest producers have different levels of voice inglobal forest governance. Large companies dealing in forest products often may havesignificant influence in the politries where they operate making them an influentialactor in global forest governance. (Humphreys, 2006)

Forest “Consumers” Seeking UtilityFor producers to survive there must also be consumers who purchase the products andservices provided. Consumers make up the third type of market actor – the group thatseeks utility from forest products and services. It is important to note that in manycases, consumers may also be producers and vice versa. Since none of the market actor-types are necessarily mutually exclusive, overlap among actors may makeunderstanding the interests of market actors, and accommodating these interests in,forest governance further complicated.

Just like producers, consumers have the power to influence global forest governancethrough their market preferences and political pressure placed on their governments.Consumers in the United States, for example, consume more than a quarter of mostforest products that the world produces, including industrial round wood, sawn wood,wood-based panels, pulp, and paper and paperboard (FAOSTAT). Developing countryand emerging economy consumers play an increasing role in consumption patterns aswell. Chinese consumers, for example, make up 23 percent of the wood-based panelmarket demand. China also accounts for 17 percent of paper and paperboard, eightpercent of industrial round wood, and four percent of sawn wood consumption globally(FAOSTAT).

Within the context of an accelerating forest crisis and international deadlock on a globalforest regime, new governance approaches to address accountability demands fromNorthern consumers have been co-evolved since the1980s. In this deadlock, non staterule-making systems that link consumers to traders and consumers and producersthrough a mechanism of certification appeared to be a possible solution to thoseattempting to overcome the stalemate at the intergovernmental level. Somecommentators argue that the increasing demand for a private approach towardssustainable forestry can, at least partially, be attributed to broader economic andpolitical trends in the last few decades that have given market-oriented policyinstruments increasing salience (Cahore, 2002). The formation of the ForestStewardship Council (FSC), as a novel cooperative mechanism to overcome an

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accountability deficit in global forest governance, will be examined in the next chapter.For the purpose of this chapter, two considerations are important regarding consumer-driven schemes, such as the FSC.

First, there are now close to 50 different national, regional, and global standardscompeting with the FSC, making it very challenging for consumers without detailedknowledge to assess the actual value of the various certificates, a situation that in thelong-run might well undermine the general idea of sustainability certification. Thisdevelopment of multiple schemes seems to underscore the broader trend of increasingcomplexity of the system of global forest governance. Secondly, current geographicalpatters of forest certification, strongly favoring enterprises in the developed world as wewill examine in chapter 5, indicate a bias towards Northern producers therebyreinforcing and stabilizing asymmetric power relations (Chan and Pattberg, 2008).

However, despite these governance challenges, by bringing together many differentactors and interests, by verifying these commitments, and by providing a model forother actors and other issue areas, the FSC, as one possible governance approach,provides an institutional response to the challenges of the system of global forestgovernance that merits further analysis.

Forest “Investors” Getting a ReturnInvestors make up the fourth and final type of market actor considered here,represented by the outer circle in Figure 4.3. Private investments in forests is driven,in part, by increased demand for forest products and, in part, by the need ofcorporations to secure new investment opportunities (Humphreys, 2006: 220).

Investors may be countries, organizations, corporations, or individuals. Directinvestment in timber lands has been historically led by forestry industry corporations.However, institutional investors have taken a more direct interest in forest investmentsrecently, providing indirect (or portfolio) investments through securitization, loanfinancing, and the outsourcing of forest land management (World Bank 2008b). As aresult of the influx of institutional investors, timberland management organizations(TIMOs) have emerged, shaping the way that forests, as assets, are managed andgoverned (World Bank 2008b). In the U.S., timberland investments are “currentlyestimated at USD 30 to 50 billion” (World Bank 2008b: 23).

In addition to private, corporate investors, countries like Norway and Canada, bothwith high per capita incomes and high per capita forest cover, invest public funding intoforests with the hope of maintaining and expanding market shares. Here, countries actnot only as state actors, but also as investors in the forest system. But state investorsdo not only seek financial return. In the past, countries and country leaders have alsoput forth public funds for aesthetic purposes. For example, in 1961, Tanzania’sPresident Julius K. Nyerere set aside 50 percent of the country to be natural reserve,establishing a network of national parks throughout the state. Similarly, PresidentTeddy Roosevelt established the current system of national parks in the United Statesaround the turn of the 20th century.


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Following this development more recently, countries, as well as individuals andcompanies, seek environmental returns for their money, such as carbon credits,biodiversity, and watershed protection. Conservation International (CI) is one of manynon-profit organizations that provide their own funds to support forest conservationefforts. Through a partnership with various state and non-state actors, CI invests in theworld’s biologically diverse and vulnerable areas to implement programs determinedto be the highest priority for conserving the ecosystem (CEPF 2007). In 2007, CI’srevenue stream came from a wide variety of sources, almost three-quarters of whichwere non-governmental (Conservation International 2007). By investing its own fundsin forest governance, CI is able to play a role, not only as a civil society organization (tobe discussed in the following section), but also as a legitimate investor who can demandan environmental return.

Private philanthropy contributes another subcategory within the domain of forestinvestors. Philanthropic efforts provide additional funds and publicity to preserve andsustainably manage forests for the purpose of gaining environmental returns.Approximately 6 percent of international philanthropic giving ($230 million) in the U.S.was allocated to the environment in 2005 (World Bank 2008b: 25). Though only aportion of that will go into sustainable forest management, as a funding source, it couldincrease as the stock market improves. In addition to providing additional financialresources for sustainable forest management, some of these non-traditional investorsalso influence the system of global forest governance through other avenues.

Box 4.4 The Prince’s Rainforests Project The Prince of Wales has long been concerned about climate change and the roleof tropical rainforest loss. In 2007, following reports from the IPCC and Stern, heestablished The Prince’s Rainforests Project (PRP) with the aim of encouragingglobal consensus as to how the rate of tropical deforestation might be slowed.Through a process of consultation, the project has developed a proposal for anEmergency Package for Tropical forests (PRP, 2009). The goal of the proposal isto generate substantial funding quickly through an innovative public-privatepartnership.

On April 1, 2009, the Prince of Wales convened a meeting of world leaders inLondon in which the findings of the report were presented. On this occasion theyacknowledged the great importance of tropical forests in addressing climatechange and providing broader benefits for the world, emphasized the urgency ofgreatly scaling up funding for this purpose. On that basis, world leaders decidedto establish an informal working of interested countries to explore how to designa REDD scheme under UNFCCC: the International Working Group onInternational Finance (IWG). This informal working group, originating from thePrince’s initiative, turned out to an influential actor in providing input to theongoing climate change negotiations as it was recognized and supported in the G8Summit declaration on forests and land degradation on July 8, 2009. At the UN

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Secretary General’s high level REDD+ event on the margins of the 64th GeneralAssembly of the United Nations in New York City on September 23, 2009, severalheads of state made favourable references to the IWG’s efforts and analysis.

Just as the group of state actors is made up of diverse countries with divergent interests,motivations, and capacities, market actors are likewise complex and multi-faceted.Oversimplification of market actors may result to exclusion of some of these(sub)categories and their interests . A critical determinant for an effective system ofglobal forest governance is the consideration of each of these market actors byaddressing their needs and interests.

4.4 Civil Society ActorsThe next set of actors we examine is civil society organizations (CSOs). Just like stateand market actors, CSOs are far from homogenous. Since the Brundtland Report in1987, civil society has grown in importance in the arena of global forest governance.There is also an increase in efforts to include civil society voices in internationalnegotiation and global governance fora, although as Box 4.5 points out this has notalways been an easy process.

Box 4.5 Limited Participation of CSOs in Forest NegotiationsIntergovernmental processes, such as the United Nations Forum on Forests(UNFF), are primarily state-centric negotiations. However, it has now becomestandard process to also try to include the voices from civil society, organizedaround what are ‘Major Groups’, including Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).The UN has developed a set of rules about the position of NGOs duringintergovernmental meetings and negotiations. In the UNFF context, for example,Major Groups involvement is rather restricted. Traditionally Major Groups havebeen invited to participate in roundtable dialogues en marge of the UNFFnegotiations. Furthermore, Major Groups are allowed to make generalstatements in plenary sessions to respond and add their voice to governmentinterventions.

Since 1992 NGOs have played an active an important role during the process ofIPF, IFF, and UNFF. Especially in the high days of the negotiations, in 1997 andagain in 2005, NGO’s took clear positions and not only lobbied in New York, butalso in government

During the seventh session of UNFF in 2007, two roundtable sessions wereorganized with a view to inform national governments about the key interestsand concerns of Major Groups. Both roundtable sessions were restricted to anhour and a half and held at the margins of the meeting. Although the meetingswere scheduled as a formal part of the agenda, government representation in theroundtables was very limited. In the second roundtable session which took placeat the opening of the final week of negotiations there were just a handful of junior


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CSOs, or non-governmental, non-business stakeholders, are commonly viewed as‘activist’ organizations. Indeed, many are, but CSOs are as widely diverse as are states,institutions, corporations, and individuals. Broadly speaking, CSOs may be betterconceptualized as “policy entrepreneurs” who influence public policy (Najam, 1997).However, even that denotation is a simplification. How do they influence policy? And atwhat level?

There is a great desire, even among CSOs themselves, to seek a common voice – in partin order to present a united front to the state actors they aim to influence. However, itis not clear whether this is either feasible or desirable. A major purpose of civil societyinvolvement is to enable a diversity of viewpoints, experiences, and ideas to enter intothe policy discourse (REF). Thus, dialogue surrounding global forest governance will bericher and more representative if both small local CSOs and larger Western-basedinstitutions are involved.

Generally speaking, the CSO sector tends to serve four key functions: policy advocacy,policy monitoring, policy innovation, and service provision. The policy process,meanwhile, usually consists of three essential steps: agenda setting, policy development,and policy implementation (CSO paper). Table 4.1 provides a conceptual framework tohelp us understand better the role of CSOs in global forest governance. Importantly, thisframework divides CSOs in a somewhat different way from the way state or marketactors were previously discussed. Rather than pointing out North-South distinctions, ordivisions between local, regional, and international organizations, this sectionemphasizes the different functions that CSOs can serve to affect forest governanceglobally.

government representatives present. In the empty conference room of the UNthe small number of Major Groups spoke mostly amongst themselves, while inthe corridors of the UN building negotiators were consulting on how to broker adeal. Partly as a result of this, Major Groups questioned the relevance of theirpresence in New York and discredited the Forum as another ‘talk shop’ wheretheir participation was more symbolic than anything else.


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Table 4.1 Exemplars of CSOs in various roles, at various levels of discourse

CSOs as AdvocatesThe first column in Table 4.1 provides various examples of CSOs playing the role ofadvocate in the policy sphere. As advocates, CSOs act on behalf of diverse citizeninterests, providing the mouthpiece for their concerns (Najam 1999). Advocacy occursat all different levels of the policy process. At the agenda-setting stage, advocates framethe issues, establishing a common language and sometimes, a common world view(Najam 1999). CI’s Centers for Biodiversity Conservation (CBC) provide a clear exampleof such agenda setting in the forest context. The Centers focus through a wide lens onwhole regions framing the primary biodiversity issues, taking into account socio-economic, political, and environmental issues. In so doing, the Centers “speakauthoritatively [to development agencies and policymakers] about the links betweenhealthy ecosystems and healthy humans, helping leaders grasp the importance of theessential [environmental] services” they propose (Seligmann, et al. 2007: 6-7).

Advocates can go a step further in the policy development stage by influencing the finalshape of state and intergovernmental policies. In one instance, the Forests andEuropean Union Resource Network (FERN), together with the Global Witness andRainforest Foundation, published a position paper, placing pressure on the EU to helpshape its policy on deforestation and climate change. It urged the EU to not rely onmarket mechanisms to fund their climate policy, but rather to address “the drivers ofdeforestation and recogni[ze] local peoples’ rights” (FERN 2008). It directed the EUwith several “should” statements, encouraging policy makers to redefine the term“forest,” look at the potential positive contributions of shifting cultivators, and keeplogging companies from benefitting from the REDD scheme, among others.

At the policy implementation stage, advocacy usually takes the form of protestingagainst a specific policy implementation, while mentioning some preferred alternatives.

CSOs asAdvocates

CSOs asMonitors

CSOs asInnovators

CSOs asService Providers

Agenda Setting Stage -Conservation Interna-tional’s Centers for Biodi-versity Conservation

-CI: Pressure-State-Re-sponse (PSR) monitoringsystem

-RRI Supporting Net-works Programs

-Environmental Investiga-tion Agency -CI’s CBCs -RRI’s Analytical Studies

Policy Development Stage -FERN-Global Witness and Rain-forest Council-Conservation Interna-tional

-Earth Negotiations Bul-letin-CSO pressure on WorldBank forest policy-Pakistan National Con-servation Strategy

-CI’s Kayapo Project inBrazil-Terrestrial Carbon Group

-CI Brazil-CI’s Kayapo Project-CBC Philippines

Policy ImplementationStage

-Rights and ResourcesInitiative (RRI)-Green Belt Movement inKenya (Najam 1999)-FERN & Global Witnessand Rainforest Council

-CI’s Doungma Project inTibet -IMAZON (Brazil)

-CI’s Conservation Agree-ments-CI’s Innovative Financ-ing-Fanamby (Madagascar)-Forest StewardshipCouncil-CI’s Doungma Project inTibet -IMAZON (Brazil)

-CI Centers for Biodiver-sity Conservation-CI Chinese Collaboration- ChoCO2 (Chocó-ManabíCorridor ReforestationConservation CarbonProject) -Gordon&Betty MooreFoundation: Andes-Ama-zon Initiative-Oreades (Brazil)


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The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) provides an example of this sort of advocacyby “convening dialogues [between policy makers, civil society, and communities] togenerate . . . improved implementation of existing policies” (RRI). The effort by FERNand others to shape EU policy also acted to publicly criticize existing policies such as theEmissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and the CDM. The organizations point out that ETShas only succeeded in providing funds to the carbon markets and has not made much(if any) progress in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Furthermore, the paperindicates that the CDM has a “giant loophole,” delivering projects “that havecontributed little, if anything to sustainable development” (FERN 2008). On a locallevel, the Green Belt Movement in Kenya advocated for a national tree plantingprogram, which resulted in 10 million newly planted trees, involved 50,000 Kenyanwomen, and managed to define Kenya’s national tree planting policy.

CSOs as MonitorsThe second prominent role for CSOs is that of policy monitors. In this role, civil societykeeps tabs on the policy agenda, policy formation, and policy implementation. Themonitor role also takes place at all three stages of the policy process and takes ondifferent characteristics at each stage.

When setting the agenda, monitors generally collect and publish information to shapethe emerging policy agenda. Conceptually speaking, monitoring at this level is a“precursor to advocacy,” as it involves more “identification of problems rather thansolutions” (Najam, 1999). At the policy development stage, monitors also collect andpublish information, but this time about the policy development discussions as theytake place. The Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB), an arm of the InternationalInstitute for Sustainable Development (IISD), for example, plays a role inenvironmental policy development by tracking “the evolving shape of extremelycomplex, time consuming, distant, and protracted policy developments on a regular andimmediate basis” (Najam 1999). The deep influence of civil society can be seen in theshifts in World Bank forest strategy over the years (see also chapter 3 on this). As aresult of CSO pressure, and careful monitoring, the World Bank underwent a two-yearreview process of its lending policies, involving CSOs as well as governments and otherstakeholders (Hajjar and Innes, 2009). The result was a new 2002 Strategy that aimedat “harness[ing] the potential of forests to reduce poverty, integrat[ing] forests insustainable economic development, and protect[ing] vital and global environmentalservices and values” (Hajjar and Innes, 2009). Many U.S.-based non-governmentalorganizations play a similar domestic role by placing an office in Washington that tracksthe relevant policy debates. In the general arena of environmental conservation, thePakistan National Conservation Strategy represented a Southern example of publicmonitoring of Pakistani environmental policy development (Najam, 1999).

Monitors at the stage of policy implementation take notice of the actual implementationof certain forest policies, documenting and publishing violations of international andnational standards and laws (Najam, 1999).

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CSOs as InnovatorsThe third column in Table 4.1 provides examples of CSOs in the role of policy innovator.An innovator’s principal goal is to come up with new ideas, create new approaches, andimplement new strategies in the policy process. CSOs that innovate at the agendasetting stage play a “seeding role” in which they demonstrat[e] the efficacy of a newidea, publiciz[e] it, perhaps persuad[e] those with access to the greater power andbudgets to take notice, and then encourag[e] the widespread adoption of the idea”(Najam 1999). For example, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) put on aninternational workshop on reducing emissions from deforestation and forestdegradation (REDD). The purpose of the workshop was to influence and inform policy-makers and the public on the potential REDD contribution to future internationalclimate agreements. RRI also plays a significant role as an innovator by supportingnetworks of policy makers and other significant actors to exchange ideas and fosterinternational dialogue (RRI).

At the policy development stage, innovators create new approaches for addressing theforest issue, and those novel approaches are eventually accepted as “policies of choice”(Najam 1999). Innovation at the stage of policy implementation generally involves themost concrete work by CSOs. These include actual technological or other innovationsthat can be (and have been) demonstrated from on-the-ground evidence as beingeffective. One unique approach to such innovation was undertaken by the ForestStewardship Council (FSC), which laid down an “international set of Principles andCriteria . . . defin[ing] FSC’s threshold for responsible forestry practices worldwide”(FSC-US n.d: 5) By setting up a forest certification process, FSC directly encouragesresponsible forest resource practices by leveraging market interests.

CSOs as Service ProvidersProviding services is probably the single most well-recognized role for civil society actorsin any arena. In forests, as elsewhere, CSOs have been engaged in service provision atall levels of the policy process. This includes providing scientific resources and reportsthat shape policy agendas, supporting the international policy development process,and directly serving the public by helping to implement new policies on the ground.

At the agenda setting stage, CSOs can provide services such as scientific research andtechnical assistance to developing countries in preparing national reports onenvironmental impact (VB). The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), forexample, gathers film, photos, and other information from all over the world by way ofindividual investigators. They then provide the information to governmentsconstructing their environmental agendas. According to EIA, its “timely exposés havebeen extremely effective catalysts for change,” placing illegal logging at the “top of thepolitical agenda in Indonesia” and encouraging the EU to produce “an Action Plan todeal with the trade in illegal timber” (EIA). RRI likewise produces analytical studies onnatural resources as a part of its program to help shape policy-maker decisions.

Service provision for policy implementation generally involves “citizen initiatives which

serve to fill a major void in what might otherwise be considered an area of stateresponsibility” (Najam 1999).

This framework conveys multiple ideas. Civil society has been very active in the realmof global forest governance, as well as in related areas of conservation and biodiversity.Furthermore, civil society actors have a lot to offer at all levels of the policy process.Whether they undertake research to provide data for countries trying to set their forestgovernance agenda or help forest dwellers to learn how to sustainably extract resources,CSOs have an important role to play in global forest governance. Unfortunately, CSOsand other civil society actors attempt to fulfill multiple roles at various levels of thepolicy process, creating more policy “noise” than actual progress. For effective use ofeach of these roles and to efficiently intervene in setting agendas and developing andimplementing policy, CSOs ought to be matched with role that best fits their structureand capacity.

To the extent that CSOs limit their demands to a stronger role in multilateralnegotiations, they simplify and restrict the potential scope of their impact. Just likeconsidering only the interests of only one set of state actors or only a few market actors,CSOs seeking to fill only a few roles in the policy-making process lead ultimately to theexclusion of important inputs, thus yielding suboptimum results. Instead, CSOs mustengage the system at all levels and in multiple ways in order to successfully constructan effective system of global forest governance.

Other CSO Players: Knowledge Community Science plays an important role in sustainable development governance both becauseour knowledge of sustainable development processes remains incomplete and alsobecause the science itself is rapidly evolving. Sustainable development policy, therefore,needs to be knowledge driven. This has been particularly true in the case of climatechange, but it is also true in other areas, including on forests. The importance of expertadvice in shaping policy decisions is nothing new. In this, the ability to interpret realityallows experts to wield real power. Because of their access to specialized knowledge,scientists are uniquely situated to place certain issues on the public agenda (Litfin,1994). Science and the science community have become increasingly important to globalforest governance in several ways. First, science and scientists have helped to mobilizedebate and action by governments on forest issues. Second, on many forest issuesscientific expertise is necessary to assist policy-makers in the development of a policyresponse. And, third, once in place, the assessment of forest standards and targets isusually to proceed on the basis of best available scientific information. Finally, scientificresearch and scientists themselves have a potential role in encouraging compliance withinternational agreements (Elliott, 1998: 121).

However, science and the scientific community have become politicized in several ways.Haas has pointed to the importance of scientists as epistemic communities –‘transnational networks of knowledge based communities that are both politicallyempowered through their claims to exercise authoritative knowledge and motivated byshared causal and principled beliefs’ (1990, p.349). Epistemic communities are defined


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in terms of shared knowledge as well as a common political perspective. Implicit in theepistemic community approach is a traditional faith that science can transcend politics,that knowledge is separate from power. Although an extended discursus on the sociologyof science goes beyond the scope of this thesis, it is argued that the notion of knowledgebrokers refines the concept of epistemic communities, which neglects the extent towhich knowledge, once produced, becomes something of a collective good available to allwho employ it skillfully (Jasanoff, 1990). Implicit in the term is the recognition thatinjecting science into policy is itself a political act requiring a strategy of informationtransfer. Nongovernmental actors, such as those discussed in the previous sections, canalso function as knowledge brokers, framing and translating information not only fordecision makers but also for the media and the public. Thus, while scientific knowledgeis an important source of power, scientists are not the only ones with access to it; onceproduced, knowledge becomes something of a collective good, available to all who wantto incorporate it into their discursive strategies (Litfin, 1994: 37). In this, science canassist in political decision-making, but it cannot be a substitute for it. Recognition of thisreality underscores the importance of risk analysis and of 'countervailing powers' inrisk analysis, enabling the divergent assessments of risks by the various social actors toplay their full weight. Comparative risk analysis can be useful as a way of objectifyingopinions and avoiding ad hoc policy reactions. While risk analysis can assist the politicaldecision-making process by providing credible information, it can never take the placeof that process (Organization of Public Administration, 1975; Rabbinge et al, 1995).

The force of scientific arguments has also reemerged through integrated assessmentslike the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Still, without authoritative science—including relevant expertise from both developed and developing countries— and clearavenues for knowledge to influence policy processes, the role of science within thesystem of global forest governance is likely to be marginalized (Najam, 2006). At thesame time, the demand on science, particularly within the overarching politicallandscape on REDD measures, is increasing. Implementing REDD, as one element ofthe system of global forest governance, requires, amongst others, increased capacity formonitoring, reporting and verification (MRV). In particular, there will be a need forenhanced capabilities in both current and evolving technologies in remote sensing toaccess and process the data for national needs, and in methods for measuring andestimating forest carbon stocks (Meredian Institute, 2009: p.19).

The knowledge community – including traditional knowledge which is especiallyrelevant to forest policy – has to be a key actor in developing an effective system ofglobal forest governance, which is why it is important to find appropriate mechanismsin which credible knowledge can be produced and can inform policy processes.

4.5 Concluding Thoughts As has been demonstrated in scholarly work revolving complexity theory, actors withinthe system of global forest governance do not appreciate complexity and non-linearity.Complexity is regarded as a source of failure and as something that should be reducedor ‘fixed’ (Teisman, 2008: 2). However, actors connect which each other in myriad ways

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around multiple components of the evolving global forest governance agenda.

This in itself supports the claim for a polycentric perspective of global forest governancewhich seems a more adequate representation of the complex reality. However, there hasbeen some headway in trying to involve non-state actors at the multilateral level, butthese have often been piecemeal attempts and token gestures. There is an urgent needto rethink the question of actors and participation. It is clear that more actors need tobe incorporated in more meaningful ways. Despite the polycentric approach of thesystem of global forest governance developed in this chapter, it is also clear that stateswill remain the dominant actor within the system. However, non-state actors – includingmarket actors as well as civil society actors – have to be incorporated into global forestgovernance in more meaningful ways to promote a more effective system by makinguse of the specific skills of the different actors thereby utilizing its complexity.

The initial attempts to bring in multiple actors and actor-types have met with mixedresults. As noted above, the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) has run intointernal obstacles to cooperation that has limited its effectiveness in the past. However,CPF’s members include intergovernmental organizations like the UNFCCC, FAO, andthe World Bank, as well as civil society networks like IUCN and IUFRO, and its goalremains to “support the implementation of internationally agreed actions andsustainable forest management, for the benefit of people and the environment” (CPF2008: 5). The CPF may not have met its potential yet, but the potential is clearly there.The questions remain, how do best to realize this potential? The answer will have toinclude a careful rethinking of the structures of actor participation and the incentivesfor cooperation. It will also require a careful rethinking on how to get different types ofactors – state, market and civil society – working together.

There are some successful governance approaches to start building upon. We are seeinga transformation of global forest governance to involving a growing number of non-state actors in voluntary schemes and other coordinated efforts to address problems ofglobal change (Pattberg, 2007). The Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP) began asa “non-binding and voluntary agreement between governments, the private sector, civilsociety and development organizations with the objective to promote the conservationand sustainable management of the Congo Basin’s forest ecosystems” (CBFP 2008).The CBFP contains private sector members such as the Society of American Forestersand the American Forest and Paper Association. Civil society members include theAfrican Wildlife Foundation, as well as IUCN and World Resources Institute. CBFP alsoincorporates input from individual African state actors and intergovernmentalorganizations like the ITTO and UNEP. Similarly, the World Business Council forSustainable Development (WBCSD) has coordinated efforts between the private sector,IGOs, states, and civil society to provide “a platform for companies to exploresustainable development, share knowledge, experiences and best practices, and toadvocate business positions on these issues in a variety of forums, working withgovernments, non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations” (WBCSD). Animplicit limitation, however, in both the CBFP and WBCSD is that they are rarely able

to incorporate some of the more marginalized actors; such as ground-level forest usersand less organized groups.

A more successful instance of multi-actor coordination on diverse levels can be found inthe efforts of The Forests Dialogue (TFD). The TFD represents the multi-stakeholdercollaborative approach necessary to take inputs from all interested voices to developglobal forest governance. An important contribution of the TFD was the adoption of itsCEO Forum on the role of forests in climate change which mapped out a consensusaction plan on concrete next steps as was adopted by the CPF in its strategic framework(TFD, 2008). But in order for TFD to succeed, it must, in fact, achieve its goal to providemore robust linkages with the formal multilateral negotiations as well.

Ultimately, the actors challenge in global forest governance is to both broaden the baseof actors involved and to deepen the type of participation and voice that is afforded todifferent actors. This may make the system of global forest governance more complexbut it is likely to make the results of the process more representative and, therefore,more likely to be effective.

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Chapter 5

Policy Instrumentation

Lead author: Hans Hoogeveen; Co-author: Patrick Verkooijen

5.1 IntroductionThe multiplicity of issues, users, uses and views of forests has led to myriad governancemechanisms and diverse approaches to the implementation and enforcement ofsustainable forest management. While states once played the dominant role in globalgovernance, as issues have multiplied and the interconnections among them have grownmore complex, other actors, including intergovernmental organizations, private sector,scientific community, civil society organizations, and consumers, have also becomesignificant actors in designing and implementing the system of global forest governance.

The proliferation of international instruments, especially treaties or conventions, which,particularly where global forest governance is concerned, have complicated the issueand made effective governance more difficult at all levels. For example, forests areaddressed in different treaties or conventions and different international organizationsin connection with various other issues, including climate, trade, biodiversity andagriculture. A variety of international actors implements, monitors, and enforces theseagreements through different means and with a lack of coordination capacity andmechanisms, resulting in a suboptimal system of global forest governance.

In chapter 2, we described how the United Nations Conference on Environment andDevelopment (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 was preceded and followed by a flurryof negotiations for legally binding instruments, including the Convention on ClimateChange (UNFCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Conventionto Combat Desertification (UNCCD). However, attempts to negotiate a legally bindinginstrument for sustainable forest management at UNCED itself, or since, have not beensuccessful. Instead, global forest policy is caught in what has been called a “logjam”(Humphreys, 2006), as recent global discussions on an international instrument onsustainable forest management, including on forest financing, and on policyimplementation remain hampered in slow-moving intergovernmental discussionswithin UN forums.

However, as examined in chapter 2, the trends we are seeing in global forest governanceare directly related to the larger trends within sustainable development governance ingeneral. The proliferation of MEAs, and the resulting fragmentation of internationalenvironmental institutions is often described as one of the key challenges of sustainabledevelopment governance (SDG). Sustainable development governance, as we haveanalyzed in chapter 2, has been plagued by a proliferation of treaties, duplications ofmandates, dispersion of secretariats, a phenomenal rise in the negotiation burden oncountries – especially developing countries – leading to negotiation fatigue, inefficiencies

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in resource mobilization as well as resource utilization, and a resulting sense of agovernance system in disarray. That we have been able to create a global system ofsustainable development governance in as short a period as we have is impressive.However, the system shows all the signs of being put together in a hurry and remainsfar from optimal. Its potential is clear, but remains largely untapped (Najam et.al.,2006).

Scholars as well as policy practitioners have become increasingly concerned about the‘messiness’ of the global sustainable development governance system (often called the‘global environmental governance’ (GEG) system, which is itself a problem since itfocuses on only one of the three pillars of sustainable development). Amongst the issuesof concern identified in this literature, and as we highlighted in chapter 2, the followingare of special relevance to the system of global forest governance:

! Scale of Governance / Subsidiarity: Political decisions are being negotiated innew modes of governance which departs from convention, hierarchical legislation usingregulations and directives (Eberlein&Kewer, 2002; Buecher, 2008). At the same time,within the current UN system often the leading system is that society can be governedfrom UN Headquarters in New York.. The actors in the global forest governance systemas described in chapter 4 gather information, exchange ideas, formulate proposals, andmeet in informal and informal settings, prepare documents, and vote whether or not toaccept new responsibilities, including taxing themselves to cover the costs of monitoringtheir management efforts (Susskind, 1994). However, at the global level these actors for-mally meet within the UN system and given its intergovernmental character only gov-ernments are involved in the final decision-making. This leads to the strong notion ofdiplomats that they can rule, manage or make society from New York, Rome or Nairobi.It is not without reason that these diplomats press for treaties or conventions as themain instrument, because they feel that such instruments have the power to directly in-fluence the behavior at the national or subnational level. This in itself has become oneof the major stumbling blocks for achieving sustainable forest management worldwide.Such an approach does not give full justice to the changing national and internationalsociety where other non-state actors have gotten crucial roles and responsibilities forachieving global objectives (Hoogeveen et. al., 1991). Furthermore, such an approach isnot adequately equipped to the complexity of the problem, which demands weighing dif-ferent interests involved and rationalities (political, economic, scientific and economic)with which governance is confronted (Snellen, 1987). Many decisions stemming fromUN diplomacy have therefore the risk of becoming a dead letter without little or no im-pact at the national level. Given the complexity of sustainable forest management a gen-eral premise is that not everything can or should be governed at a global level. As suchsubsidiarity should be the leading principle in the decision-making processes in NewYork. Subsidiarity, the principle which says that action should be taken at the lowestpossible level of governance, is a potentially powerful concept around which a debateabout the optimal assignment of tasks across different administrative or governancelevels could be constructed (Jordan, 2000). The essential idea, being that that processesshould be managed at the level closest to where the problems in forest governance hap-pen, means that we have to differentiate between which issues are managed at theglobal level (such as global goals and targets) and which matters should be managed at


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the national or local level. Some things are best and should be managed in ( “New York”),i.e. at the global level with participation from everyone and with regular broad diplo-macy, while others are best managed at other international fora, the regional level, orat more technical or national levels. The level where issues are managed should corre-spond to the nature of the issues and the nature required addressing them. In this wayinstitutional decentralization is a second element of an effective system of global forestgovernance which we further elaborate in the concluding chapter. Differentiation isneeded between the “broad and general” diplomacy that happens in New York and themore specific diplomacy that is needed and possible at subsidiary international forums.In the case of forests, very often a regional approach is much more appropriate.

! Treaty congestion is a prominent problem afflicting SDG (Weis 1999, Najam 2003).Within this broader field there are more than 500 MEAs registered with the UN, includ-ing 61 atmosphere-related; 155 biodiversity-related; 179 related to chemicals, hazardoussubstances and waste; 46 land conventions; and 196 conventions that are broadly relatedto issues dealing with water (Knigge et al.; Roch en Perrez, 2005). This has createdmessiness, incoherence and confusion in SDG, and incites demands for centralization indecision-making. There has also been a tendency to assume that the autonomy of legalagreements implies autonomy of secretariats. This has led to an institutional congestionthat complicates as well as exacerbates the MEA proliferation. As a result, MEA secre-tariats instead of seeking collaboration and coordination, have developed an institutionalinterest in further expansion of their work, competing with other secretariats. Addingfurther to the noise is the proliferation of new subsidiary bodies and ad hoc workinggroups within MEAs (French, 2002). The net result of all these developments is a clut-tered and overheated MEA negotiating calendar which not only produces negotiationfatigue but can also distract discussions from actual treaty implementation. It may leadto a tremendous growth of budgets of MEAs for partly overlapping activities. An analysisof ten leading MEAs highlights a budget increase from 8.18 million USD in 1992 to 75.83million USD in 2007. This is more than a 900% increase (Munoz et.al., 2009).

! Institutional and policy fragmentation, has resulted from policy being dispersednot only amongst ever more specialized treaty bodies but also geographically across theglobe as the institutions managing these policies get fragmented by having to operate indifferent political, normative and geographical contexts (Le Prestre and Martimot-Asso,2004; Knigge et al, 2005). For example, the Climate and Desertification Secretariatsare in Bonn, the Biodiversity Secretariat is in Montreal, the Convention on InternationalTrade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Geneva, etc. This fragmentation also has sig-nificant consequences for implementation at the national level, not only because globalpolicy signals reach national governments from different global institutions, but alsobecause the responsibility for feeding in national positions into these global policyprocesses become fragmented nationally. For example, while it is widely recognized thatthere is a complex system of interrelated cause and-effect chains among climate, biodi-versity, desertification, water and forests, each responding convention or instrumenthas its own defined objectives and commitments that fragment institutional commit-ments, create issue barriers, and impede the search for policy coherence.

! Negotiation fatigue is increasing and states, especially developing countries, strug-gle to meet institutional demands as the number of institutions and international agree-ments increases. Participation in SDG represents a challenge for all states, but the

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challenges are particularly severe for developing countries, which use very scarce re-sources to participate in negotiations and meetings, and to satisfy reporting require-ments and other SDG demands (Chasek and Ramajani). A general sense of negotiationfatigue is now apparent amongst seasoned sustainable development negotiators fromall countries. Reasons behind are missing unifying concepts, unifying methodology, vari-able sense of urgency, lack of political support, lack application of financial instrumentsand lack of leadership. The implications and consequences of negotiation fatigue can beparticularly costly for developing countries.

Overstretched human and financial resources needed for global governance leavedeveloping countries with fewer resources for implementation or to mitigateenvironmental threats of most concern to them. A recent study highlighted thatbetween 1992-2007 on 10 major MEAs held 250 negotiation meetings lasting 1,626 days(Munoz, Thrasher and Najam, 2009). The study demonstrates that there is excessivenegotiation activity, although it is not clear whether and how much of this translatesinto actual outcome improvements. Despite, and possibly because of, all this negotiatingactivity, measuring the effectiveness of the SDG system has become conceptually andpractically important (Young, 1999).

! Duplication and conflicting agendas occur because new treaties often tend to benegotiated from scratch by new negotiators who do not have the tools to retrieve insti-tutional histories and have little incentive to build upon existing agreements. Moreover,because MEAs are often time- and energy-consuming multilateral negotiations(Susskind, 1994), agreement sometimes comes at the cost of leaving treaty text pur-posely ambiguous and unclear. For example, technically both CITES and the Conventionon Biodiversity (CBD) have a conservation focus. However, in practice, they put verydifferent emphasis on preservation and sustainability. Finally, the same issue can be dif-ferently governed in different policy arenas. For example, such conflict is most evidentin the potential conflicts between trade and environmental law.

Building on the above, the remainder of this chapter will look at the available suite ofpolicy instruments for global forest governance, and the constraints and opportunitiesfor better implementation of global forest policy.

5.2 Policy Instruments for Global Forest Governance: The ContextAs discussed in previous chapters we are witnessing an increase in theinternationalization and, to a certain extent, globalization of forests, in terms ofproduction and consumption, as well as policy. In the years since UNCED – workingthrough the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF)/Intergovernmental Forum onForests (IFF)/ United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) – the international communityhas made some progress in the development and coordination of international forestpolicy, but not enough to make sustainable forest management a reality on the ground(FAO, 2009). In particular, negotiators have struggled to get clarity and consensus onthree critical and related issues: (a) what should be the global objectives and therationale for action at the global level; (b) what is the best legal character for aninternational forest instrument, and (c) what are the most effective means ofimplementation, especially including the sources of new and additional financial


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resources (Hoogeveen et.al., 2008).

While there is wide agreement that global forest governance needs to be contextualizedwithin the framework of sustainable development, this has itself made the efforts all themore difficult. Clearly all three pillars of sustainable development – economic,environmental, social – are of immense relevance to forest policy (World Bank, 2004).Yet, each of these pillars operates within its own unique policy ‘rationality’ (see Craig,1990: 302). For example, an ‘environmental rationality’ gives precedence to ecologicalintegrity while an ‘economic rationality’ gives priority to efficiency while a ‘socialreality’ highlights the implications of equity. Integrating these rationalities within aunique policy instrument is rather challenging and any effort to do so is itself boundedby the limitations of a fourth ‘legal rationality,’ which can itself vary along a continuumof different incentive structures (such as coercion, transaction and conviction)embedded in the respective policy instrument chosen (for example, the ‘rationality’ ofcommand and control regulation is intrinsically different from the ‘rationality’ ofmarket instruments). Furthermore the perspectives to act are situational bound andcan differ in time too. Given that the crop of ‘UNCED Conventions’ were all legally-binding Treaties and Conventions, policy-makers working on forest issues have becomeoverly preoccupied only with this particular and limited rationality. The single-mindedfocus on the legal rationality of a binding treaty has blinded negotiators to other,possibly more innovative, policy rationalities, which could possibly lead to a moreholistic governance approach. Although some small steps towards adopting a multi-pronged approach which also includes market mechanisms are now being adopted, theseefforts are still young and yet to bear policy fruit (Hoogeveen et.al, 2008).

Returning to the ‘wedge diagram’ that was first introduced in Chapter 2 (Figure 2.2)we can begin tracing the dominant trends in policy approaches adopted at various pointsin the evolution of global forest governance. Prior to the 1980s, global forest governancetook place piecemeal – on a country-by-country basis. The doctrine of state sovereigntyover its natural resources has long dominated the issue of forest management,entrusting forest governance to the state-based legislative and regulatory processes.Developing countries, given their own colonial sensibilities, have been particularlyapprehensive about an erosion of state sovereignty and a dilution of decision-makingpower and control over natural resources. For example, during the 1972 United NationsConference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, developing countries insistedthat Northern environmental concerns did not “interfere with their developmentagenda and that environmental policy should be left to the individual states” (Zelke,1998: 281). Principle 21 of the Stockholm Declaration, in particular, was crafted tohighlight that states retained sovereignty over resources within their territory, but alsothe responsibility to not cause environmental damage to other states by activities withintheir jurisdictions (UN, 1972).

By the time of the Rio Conference in 1992, states had become cognizant of the need forinternational standards of forest management and treatment. However, as we describedin chapter 2, they were still unable to come to a consensus as to what standards shouldbind sovereign states. As a result, the Rio Summit failed to agree on a global forest

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convention, although it did agree to a Non-Legally Binding Authoritative Statement ofPrinciples for a Global Consensus on the Management, Conservation and SustainableDevelopment of All Forests (UN 1992: Annex III). Under the CBD, as another example,the Work Programme for Forest Biological Diversity emphasizes “conservation,sustainable use and benefit sharing; an enabling institutional and socio-economicenvironment; and knowledge, assessment and monitoring” (UNFF, 2004: 13). This workprogram is not binding, but provides for voluntary strategies for forest conservation.Thus a transition began gradually taking place from a sole focus on domestic regulatoryinstruments towards more international normative instruments.

Over the past fifteen years, there has been a constant push for a legally bindingcommitment on forests. Although no international convention has resulted, countrieshave made commitments (often reporting commitments) under other conventions andunder non-legally binding instruments, which can be viewed as steps towards moreinternational cooperation on the issue. For example, through the Kyoto Protocol of theUNFCCC countries have committed to providing national inventories of greenhousegases and carbon sinks. Under the Joint Implementation and Clean DevelopmentMechanism (CDM) countries may measure their emissions reductions from forestryprojects (UNFF, 2004: 12). In 2002 and 2003, parties agreed to include afforestationand reforestation in the CDM commitments. After 15 years of discussions andnegotiations, the UNFF reached final decisions on global objectives for action and theneed for the establishment of a Non-legally Binding Instrument (NLBI). While this doesrepresent a major breakthrough, it also highlights the recognition by the internationalcommunity of the need for global action (Hoogeveen, 2007).

Of the three key questions that international forest negotiators have grappled with, itseems that on the first – the objectives of and rationale for global forest policy – therehas been slow but perceptible progress forward and a recognition of the need for globalaction but without a clear articulation of exactly how (Hoogeveen, 2008). On the secondissue – of the legal nature of the global instrument – the thrust has been for a legallybinding instrument but a recognition is beginning to emerge that a more flexible andmulti-dimensional ‘legal rationality’ may be needed which includes market and otherinnovative instruments. On the third issue – the means of implementation and itsfinancing – the discussions are still embryonic and this remains one of the biggestchallenges before international decision-makers.

5.3 Relevant Policy Instruments for Global Forest Governance:a closer look

The previous section has shown the broad context and evolution of global forest policy.In this section we will review some of the most relevant policy instruments that havebeen emerged through this evolution. These instruments not only form the currentstructure of whatever complex system of global forest governance we have, they arealso the starting point for any future innovations in this system.

International instruments (or agreements) frequently contain an articulation of generalprinciples and frameworks for action to address specific problems under the preview of

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these instruments. They call for specific national level actions, such as the adoption ofnational regulations standards and implementation strategies. Other commonprovisions of such instruments include international cooperation, monitoring andreporting, research, exchange of information, well established dispute resolutionprocesses, coordination among related agreements, and establishment of independentsecretariats. Generally, international (legal) instruments contain clear statementsregarding jurisdiction; standard, rule or norm formation; and remedial measuresincluding sanctioning. Furthermore, scientific consensus, flexibility in achieving theinstrument’s objectives, involvement of stakeholders, existence of clear relationshipsto existing institutions, and an economic and political commitment are recognized asimportant elements. There are, however, multiple approaches that can be taken instructuring the instrument. For example, one approach is of creating strongsupranational organizations with a high degree of centralized powers, including tradesanctions and other forms of sanctions; in the UN system the Security Council is theprime example of such an approach. This kind of approach with a strong emphasis oncoercion is not the approach taken in the field of Agenda 21 and given the experiencewith international policy making in the field of natural resources seems not to be theright approach. A different approach would favour a more participatory approach withnormative declarations that nations sign up to which are them progressively ramped upto more binding commitments. Most environmental agreements, including those onbiodiversity and climate change have followed such an approach. Yet another approachwould focus on a strong rule-based (as opposed to norm-based) governance structurewith the ability to be flexible and dynamic, for example, open exchange of relevantinformation, a hierarchy of progressively applied liability rules, well established disputeresolution processes, coordination among related agreements, and establishment ofindependent secretariats. Trade agreements often follow such an approach.

However, despite years of international negotiation on sustainable development, manyof the key principles – or at least the legal language to articulate these principles –remains contentious. For example, Box 5.1 lists a set of principles many of which havebeen articulated in multiple environment and development treaties (from Hunter etal., 1998). The fact that these principles have to be renegotiated in each treaty and thatnot all are encased in all treaties demonstrates that even at the level of essentialprinciples, international sustainable development law still remains a work in progress,and many of the most fundamental legal principles still remain contentious and in needfor greater clarity and clarification.

Box 5.1 Some Recurring Principles in International Environment and DevelopmentAgreements

State Sovereignty: State sovereignty in the legal sense underlines independence:the right to exercise, within a portion of the earth and to the exclusion of otherstates, the functions of a State such as the exercise of jurisdiction andenforcements of laws over their inhabitants therein. It reflects also the broadresponsibilities, rights and powers that international law confirms with


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‘statehood’. Important in this context is that is affirms the national sovereigntyover its natural resources.

Right to Development: the right to development exists of two components. Thefirst one is that sovereign States exercise control over their resources and havethe right to control their own economic, social and cultural development. Thesecond component is that all people should enjoy a right to a certain minimumlevel of development, which should be measured in more than economic terms.In the context of global forest governance developing countries underscore theright of all countries and peoples to choose their own path of development, evenif it means exploiting or over-exploiting their natural resources).

Common Heritage of Humankind: this principle reflects the areas on earth whichare beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. Over half of the world’s surfacearea lies outside the national borders of any one State, for example high seas,Antarctica, outer space etc. These global commons are captured in the ‘commonheritage of humankind’. Applied to a particular set of resources the Commonheritage of Mankind has four characteristics: non-appropriation; internationalmanagement; shared benefits; and reservation for peaceful purposes.

Common Concerns of Humankind: protecting the environment and achievingsustainable development are ‘common concerns of humanity’. It implies that theglobal environment and achieving sustainable development can no longer beconsidered only within the national jurisdiction of states due to its globalimportance and consequences for human mankind. It reflects to need to jointconservation and to find ways through international cooperation to facilitate itsconservation and sustainable use.

Obligation not to cause environmental harm: In international law context, Statesare under a general obligation not to use their territory, or to allow its territoryto be used, in a way that can harm the interest of another State.. It was extendedto environmental damage in the Trail Smelter arbitration.

State responsibility: this principle reflects the responsibility of a State forbreaches of their obligations under international law, including for breaching theobligation not to cause environmental harm.

Intergenerational Equity: the principle is one of fairness in a sense that presentgenerations should not leave future generations worse off by the choices we maketoday regarding development. Intergenerational equity requires to take intoconsideration the impact of our activities on future generations, giving them aplace at the table in international decision making. As a minimum requirementthe principle requires using natural resources sustainable and avoidingirreversible environmental damage.

Common but differentiated Responsibilities: all States have commonresponsibilities to protect the environment and promote sustainabledevelopment. But, because of different economic, social and ecological situations,

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Focussing more particularly on global forest instruments, although there is no globallegally binding agreement on forests, there are already a number of instruments directlyand indirectly affecting aspects of forest governance. A key aspect of the Agenda 21approach to forest is to focus on the multiple roles and functions of forest, as shown inchapter 2. Only if the choice of instruments reflects these multiple role and functionsof forests, implementation can be successful. It is therefore not without reason thatincreasingly forest actors realize that these instruments address forest issues infragmented and uncoordinated ways. For example, the UNFF has identified at least 40legally binding international instruments related to forests, of which six are protocolsto framework conventions whilst another three are complementary stand-aloneagreements to other framework conventions. Of the non-legally binding forest-relatedagreements and processes, the most relevant ones to global forests governance includethe Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Johannesburg Plan ofImplementation (JPOI) of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).Most of the remaining non-legally binding processes (apart from the MinisterialConference for the Protection of Forests in Europe) tend to be comprised of a set of

countries must shoulder different responsibilities. The principle reflects coreelements of equity, placing more responsibility on developed countries and thosethat are more responsible for causing specific environmental problems.

Precautionary Principle: the principle is reflected in article 15 of the Riodeclaration (UNCED, 1992): “where there are threats of serious irreversibledamage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason forpostponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental damage”. Itswitches the burden of scientific proof necessary for policy responses from thosewho support prohibiting or reducing a potential damaging activity to those whowant to continue the activity. The principle does not provide guidance on whataction to except to limit them to ‘cost-effective measures’.

Principle of prevention: this principle gives preference to environmentalmanagement policies that eliminate and reduce pollution before it occurs. It isclosely related to the precautionary principle. In fact it is often viewed as oneway to implement the precautionary principle.

Duty to Assess Environmental Impacts: the principle aims to ensure that beforegranting approval for an activity the appropriate government authorities havefully identified and considered the environmental effects of proposed activitiesunder their jurisdiction and control and affected citizens have an opportunity tounderstand the proposed project or policy and to express their views to theauthorities.

Principle of Subsidiarity: the principle reflects a preference for making decisionsat the lowest level of government or social organization where the issue can beeffectively managed. Subsidiarity thus not tell what the right decision in anygiven context is, but only where in the hierarchy the decision should be made.

Source: International Environmental Law and Policy, Hunter et all, 1998


negotiated proposals of an advisory nature to countries and international organizations.(Background document UNFF/AHEG, 2005)

The remainder of this section will briefly review the contents of the most relevantlegally binding instruments, soft law instruments and provisions, and market-basedand non-state instruments that relate to global forest governance.

a. Legally Binding InstrumentsUnited Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). As wedescribed in earlier chapters, forests are an important component of the global carboncycle. They both influence and are influenced by climate change. Sustainable forestmanagement, as well as avoided deforestation, afforestation and reforestation, cancontribute towards emissions reductions and to carbon sequestration. Therefore, forestshave been a major concern of global climate change policy from the very beginning. TheUNFCCC, which was adopted in 1992 at UNCED, aims at stabilizing the concentrationof greenhouse gases in the atmosphere so as to prevent dangerous human-inducedchanges to the global climate system. Parties to the UNFCCC committed themselves tocarrying out national inventories of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sinks,including forests. Industrialized countries and countries with economies in transition(so-called Annex I Parties) committed themselves to working towards voluntary goalsin the reduction of emissions. These obligations were intensified and specified in theKyoto Protocol, which was adopted at COP-3 of the UNFCCC, held in Kyoto, Japan inDecember 1997. The agreement entered into force on February 16, 2005. Currently 183governments have become Parties to the Convention while 122 Parties have ratified oracceding to the Kyoto Protocol.

The Kyoto Protocol establishes three mechanisms, which collectively constitute aprototype international emissions trading framework or carbon market - InternationalEmissions Trading, Joint Implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism(CDM). While Annex I countries are able to use the three Kyoto mechanisms to achievetheir commitments, non-Annex I countries are only able to benefit from hostingafforestation and reforestation projects under the CDM. The Bali Action Plan – adoptedat COP13 – provides a roadmap for the negotiation of a new regulatory framework forinternational action on climate change following the expiry of the first commitmentperiod of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. With regard to forests the Bali Action Plan callsfor: “consideration of policy approaches and positive incentives on issues relating toreducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries;and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement offorest carbon stocks in developing countries.” This is an important step towards thefull integration of forests within the international climate change framework, althoughmany challenges need to be overcome, including addressing the risks of leakage, lack ofcapacity for robust monitoring systems, a well-designed mechanism for linking forestabatement to carbon markets, and accessing funding from the private and public sectorsas carbon market finance grows (Eliasch Review, 2008).

It is clear that at least in the near future, the UNFCCC will be playing an increasingly


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important role in global forest governance. As climate change dominates the globalagenda, the carbon sequestration role of forests is bound to attract ever more attentionan resources, as it already has begun to do with REDD. The danger, however, is that asthe global forest governance agenda becomes more and more focused on carbon stocksand sinks other forest interests could become relatively marginalized.

Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Although many of the articles of CBDapply to forest ecosystems, the Convention itself does not make specific mention offorests. In 1996 the Conference of Parties recommended that CBD should develop awork program in this regard. At the same time, it also discussed developing a protocolthat could obviate the need for a global forest convention. In 1998, CBD adopted theCBD Work Program for Forest Biological Diversity, which focused on research,cooperation and technology development. It established an ad hoc technical expertgroup on forest biological diversity to make further progress on the issues.

Since then, CBD has expanded the focus of the Convention’s program of work on forestbiological diversity from research to action-oriented activities. CBD has encouraged theapplication of the ecosystem approach and noted the importance of supporting work ontaxonomic, ecological and socioeconomic issues for the restoration of forest ecosystemsand forest resources. It has also made reference to the IPF and IFF proposals for action,in particular those concerning the valuation of forest goods and services, and it stressedthe need to harmonize the Convention’s work with the IPF and IFF proposals for actionon traditional forest-related knowledge. In 2002 CBD adopted an expanded Program ofWork on Forest Biological Diversity, composed of three elements: conservation,sustainable use and benefit sharing; an enabling institutional and socio-economicenvironment; and knowledge, assessment and monitoring. The CBD work program onforest biological diversity is voluntary and not legally binding, there are no time-boundcommitments or targets in its program of work.

CBD has closely collaborated with other members of the CPF on harmonizing andstreamlining national reporting; and facilitate the full and effective participation ofindigenous and local communities and other relevant stakeholders. (Backgrounddocument UNFF/AHEG, 2005).

The activities within the CBD very much relate to one of the pillars of sustainable forestmanagement: conserving and the sustainable use of forest resources. Although forestsare closely linked with achieving the targets of the CBD there are other aspects ofsustainable use that are possibly left out. There is also significant duplication andoverlap with activities under the umbrella of UNFF. Here is a case that would benefitfrom much better coordination between the CBD and UNFF.

United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in those CountriesExperiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, particularly in Africa(UNCCD). Forests are an important element to the UNCCD. As we described inchapter 3 forests perform important ecological functions that prevent desertificationand arid conditions, stabilizing soils and water resources. Conversely, deforestation canfoster both desertification and land degradation, particularly in arid, semiarid and subhumid regions. In addition to this ecological link, forest loss and desertification are

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inter-connected in that the underlying socio-economic conditions and causes are verysimilar. Strategies to deal with desertification are likely to mitigate forest loss, and viceversa. The UNCCD, which entered into force in 1996, aims to combat desertification,mitigate the effects of drought and contribute to the achievement of sustainabledevelopment. This involves long-term strategies that focus on improved productivityof the land and rehabilitation, conservation and sustainable management of land andwater resources, and work leading to improved living conditions; forests, and treesoutside of forests, are relevant to all these strategies. Combating desertification requiresa broad approach, incorporating most aspects of environmental management in the drylands, which comprise one third of the Earth's land surface. UNCCD provides forRegional Implementation Annexes; those for Africa and Latin America and theCaribbean require national action programs to achieve the goals of the Convention inorder ensure the integrated and sustainable management of natural resources,including forests. An important development for this instrument is the designation ofthe GEF as a financial mechanism to the UNCCD. The designation of GEF as afinancing mechanism for UNCCD led since then to substantial funding under the focalarea of land degradation.

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna andFlora (CITES). Several threatened and endangered tree species have been listed in theappendices of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of WildFauna and Flora (CITES), which place various levels of control or restrictions on theirtrade. CITES Appendix III includes all species that any Party identifies as being subjectto regulation within its jurisdiction for the purpose of preventing or restrictingexploitation, and as needing the cooperation of other Parties in the control of trade.Appendix II includes: i) all species that, while not threatened with extinction, maybecome so unless trade in specimens of the species is subject to strict regulation; and ii)other species that must be subject to regulation so that trade in specimens of speciesreferred to in i) above may be brought under effective control. Appendix I includesspecies threatened with extinction that are, or may be, affected by trade; trade inspecimens of these species must be subject to particularly strict regulation in order notto endanger their survival further, and it must only be authorized in exceptional cases.

Controversy arose when attempts were made to list some major commercial tree species,such as mahogany, in the appendices in the 1990s. In 2002 during the 12th Conferenceof the Parties in Santiago, Chile agreement was reached on the inclusion of mahoganyon Appendix II, followed by a similar decision on ramin at the next session in Bangkok,Thailand. Despite progress made on the regulation of some commercial timber speciesin the framework of CITES controversy remains.

It is clear that illegal logging and trade is and will be one of the main challenges forsustainable forest management in the years to come. CITES, although developed toregulate trade for certain species under certain conditions, has only a rather weak andnarrow basis and mandate for addressing commercial trade in timber. If illegal trade isto be dealt with effectively, the most appropriate body to do so would be the WTO. This,once again, demonstrates the need for better coherence between the multiple


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institutions that deal with different aspects of the forests problematique. Therefore isit crucial to make a distinction between the multiple role and functions of forests withregard to the choice of instruments. During the Ministerial Round Table session at the14th Conference of the Parties in the Netherlands in June 2007 stark differences wereexpressed on the role of CITES vis-à-vis regulating commercial timber species.

International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA). The International TropicalTimber Agreement (ITTA) is a commodity agreement under the auspices of the UnitedNations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The International TropicalTimber Organization (ITTO) was established under the auspices of the United Nationsin 1986 amidst increasing worldwide concern for the fate of tropical forests. Whilealmost everyone was alarmed at the rate of deforestation occurring in many tropicalcountries, there was also considerable agreement that the tropical timber trade wasone of the keys to economic development in those same countries. The ultimatechallenge was and still is how to produce more productive with less land. Thereconciliation of these two seemingly disparate phenomena is ITTO's story. ITTO'sorigins can be traced back to 1976 when the long series of negotiations that led to thefirst International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA) began at the fourth session of theUnited Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) as part of thatorganization's Programme for Commodities. The eventual outcome of thesenegotiations was the ITTA, 1983, which governed the Organization's work until 31December 1996, when it was superseded by the ITTA, 1994. Negotiations for a successorto this agreement were concluded in 2006, again under the auspices of UNCTAD.

As the first ITTA was being negotiated in the early 1980s, concern over the fate oftropical forests was increasing and the international community was being asked totake action. By then, conservation had become at least as important a consideration inthe negotiations as trade. This was reflected in the preamble to the Agreement, in whichconservation and trade were accorded equal importance. The creators of the Agreementbelieved that a flourishing trade in tropical timber, if based on a well-managed forestresource, could be a key to sustainable development, providing valuable foreignexchange and employment while protecting natural forests from destruction,degradation and excision. The ITTA that eventually came into operation was noconventional commodity agreement. It was, in reality, as much an agreement for forestconservation and development as for trade. In effect, it preceded the concerns, whichfeatured in the 1987 Brundtland Report and at the Earth Summit in 1992, and its tradecomponents were as much instruments for tropical forest conservation as ends inthemselves. ITTA 2006 builds on the foundations of the previous agreements, focusingon the world tropical timber economy and the sustainable management of the resourcebase, simultaneously encouraging the timber trade and the improved management ofthe forests. In addition, it contains provisions for information sharing, including non-tropical timber trade data, and allows for the consideration of non-tropical timber issuesas they relate to tropical timber.

ITTA’s potential lies mainly in developing projects for sustainable forest managementin tropical countries. Effective implementation is hindered by lack of universal

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membership and as a direct result of that lack of means of implementation, the narrowscope of the agreement – it addresses only certain elements (emphasis on conservationand trade) – and a strong focus on projects in stead of addressing also the relatedpolicies. This project focus, combined with a lack of universal membership leads to arather narrow governance response to the much broader sustainable forestmanagement agenda. In the process, many potentially useful opportunities from cross-institutional collaboration are missed.

World Trade Organization (WTO). The World Trade Organization (WTO) is thepremier global international organization dealing with the rules of trade betweennations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of theworld’s trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. Although the WTO has nospecific agreement dealing with the forests, a number of the WTO agreements includeprovisions dealing with related concerns. For example, the Agreement on Agriculture(AoA), the provisions under the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)Agreement, the environmental provisions of the Doha Mandate, discussions on productlabelling, etc., all have deep bearing on forests and forests products and services.Furthermore, sustainable development and environmental protection are stated as keyobjectives in the preamble to the Agreement Establishing the WTO.

While the environmental dimensions – which has become increasingly important to theWTO in recent years, and especially so in the Doha Round – adds new salience to theforests dimension of international trade, the fact of the matter is that forests productshave long been traded internationally and, therefore, are the subject of internationaltrade law. In this sense, WTO provisions may be amongst the strongest available legallybinding provisions effecting international trade in forests products. While theseprovisions have been traditionally written and are implemented from a tradingperspective rather than a sustainable forest management perspective, they are centralto the global governance of forests because WTO provisions tend to be stringentlyimplemented and governments often tend to take them far more seriously than muchof environmental law, which – even when it is technically ‘legally binding’ tends to bemore declaratory than mandatory in its essence.

Notwithstanding the WTO’s great potential the agenda of the trade negotiations leavesample space for taking up the complex issue of illegal trade of forest products. As alreadymentioned, the WTO is most suited to deal with the illegal timber trade issue. However,viewing itself simply as a trade body, the WTO has shown a reluctance to do so becauseof priorities on other themes. Even as those from the forests side who do wish to act onthis issue have found their own instruments and institutions lacking the mandate –and frankly the ability – to deal with this trade aspect. Indeed, right now their tryingto do so might be in violation of WTO rules.

b. Soft Law: Non-Legally Binding InstrumentsAgenda 21. Agenda 21, as we learned from chapter 2, is the principal document comingout of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Meant to be a global plan of action on sustainabledevelopment, this is a detailed and comprehensive which, although not legally binding,


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has great salience as a baseline for sustainable development action. Chapter 11 ofAgenda 21 deals exclusively with sustainable forest management. The objectives of thischapter area are as follows (UN, 1992):

! To strengthen forest-related national institutions, to enhance the scope and effectiveness of activities related to the management, conservation and sustainable development of forests, and to effectively ensure the sustainable utilization and production of forests' goods and services in both the developed and the developing countries; by the year 2000, to strengthen the capacities and capabilities of national institutions to enable them to acquire the necessary knowledge for the protection and conservation of forests, as well as to expand their scope and, correspondingly, enhance the effectiveness of programmes and activities related to themanagement and development of forests;

! To strengthen and improve human, technical and professional skills, as well as expertise and capabilities to effectively formulate and implement policies, plans, programmes, research and projects on management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests and forest-based resources, and forest lands inclusive, as well as other areas from which forest benefits can be derived.

A key focus of the Agenda 21 approach to forests is to underscore the multiple rolesand functions of all types of forests, forest lands and woodlands. Chapter 11 of Agenda21 also emphasizes enhancing the protection, sustainable management andconservation of all forests, and the greening of degraded areas, through forestrehabilitation afforestation, reforestation and other rehabilitative means; promotingefficient utilization and assessment to recover the full valuation of the goods andservices provided by forests, forest lands and woodlands and establishing and/orstrengthening capacities for the planning, assessment and systematic observations offorests and related programmes, projects and activities, including commercial trade andprocesses. The actions mentioned are related to management-related activities; dataand information; international and regional cooperation and coordination and means ofimplementation (financial and cost evaluation, scientific and technological means,human resource development, capacity-building and funding of international andregional cooperation.

Forest Principles. As a result of the intense debate and divisions around the forestsissue at the Rio Earth Summit, it became impossible to conclude a formal agreement onforests (unlike climate change and biodiversity, on which Framework Conventions wereconcluded. The approach adopted in the run-up to Rio was the exact antithesis of theapproach we are advocating here. Instead of dealing with forests as the complex issueit was, negotiators sough to simplify it and strip it down to is essentials. By the time theywere done, all that remained were the naked differences. As a result, the forests issuehad been so sliced and diced by the time it arrived at Rio that instead of highlightingthe areas of common concern, all the areas of disagreement were pronounced. Notsurprisingly, then, no forests agreement came out of the Earth Summit. What came out,instead, was a “Non-Legally Binding Authoritative Statement of Principles for a Global

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Consensus on the Management, Conservation and Sustainable Development of AllForests” (See Appendix II for full text).

The hope – never fulfilled – was that the non-legally binding statement would eventuallybecome the basis of a binding agreement. While that has yet to transpire, the experienceof trying to formulate a consensus did have the salutary effect of highlighting why apiecemeal approach to making this complex issue was a recipe for failure. Even the actof crafting the non-binding statement required bringing in a host of issues that theproponents of a formal agreement had originally wished to keep out. Eventually, thethrust of the statement was to reformulate the forests problematique as a sustainabledevelopment issue by highlighting principles to “utilize, manage and develop theirforests in accordance with their development needs” (UN 1992).

Although the Principles are declaratory soft law and are not legally binding, they doconstitute a milestone because they have helped frame all post-Rio forest discussions,including discussions that led into and have flowed from the IPF/IFF, the UNFF andNLBI. In this regards, the actual impact of the Principles has been significant becausethey have become the basis of the context in which all current forest policy discussionstake place.

IPF/IFF Proposals for Action. A successor step to the Rio Earth Summit and itssearch for better global forest management was the creation to the IntergovernmentalPanel on Forests (IPF) which operated from 1995-1997, and its own successorinstitution, the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF) which operated from 1997-2000. For the purpose of this chapter our interest lies in the key ‘instruments’ andproposals for action emerging from these initiatives.

In particular, there was great hope at the time of the creation of the IPF that the panelwould be able to build on the principles laid out in the non-binding Statement comingout of Rio and would be able to consolidate these into a more meaningful policyinstrument. That hope was soon discarded as the substantive as well as the politicalcomplexity of the issue had already been exposed at Rio. Instead, the IntergovernmentalPanel on Forests agreed to 86 proposals for action in 149 paragraphs to achievesustainable forest management, which are reflected in the final report (Humphreys,2006). The Intergovernmental Forum on Forests, successor to the IPF, resulted in 120additional proposals for action to achieve sustainable forest management building uponthe IPF proposals for action (UN document E/CN.17/2000/14, ‘Report of theIntergovernmental Forum on Forests at its Fourth session, New York, 31 January-11February 2000: 20 March 2000).

Analysis of the IPF proposals suggests that the bulk of them (50 out of 86) relate tonational action rather than international. These proposals can be arranged into fourcategories – implementation of forest-related decisions of UNCED; internationalcooperation in financial assistance and technology transfer; scientific research, forestassessment and criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management; trade andenvironment in relation to forest products and services; and international organizationsand multilateral institutions and instruments. The same issues have occupied the timeand attention of the IFF since its inception in 1997. In particular, issues related to


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international cooperation and means of implementation, including financial assistanceand technology transfer was and remains one of central concern to the globalgovernance of forests.

Although the proposals coming out of IPF or, subsequently, out of IFF do not have legalstanding as global policy instruments, they do represent the locus of merginginternational opinion on issues related to global forests governance. It is clear fromreviewing the proposals that the enthusiasm for a single and simplistic treatyarrangement that had marked the discussions at Rio has since given way to a moresobering realization that the inherent complexity of the forest issue cannot be wishedaway. The proposals of IPF clearly marked the multiple roles and functions of forestsand addressed these in the proposals. Herewith the recognition of this complexity hasincreased; the hurdles of multilateral negotiations have not yet allowed decision-makersto arrive at meaningful ways to deal with this complexity at that juncture. However,there is a realization that an agreement on financial issues may be the key to resolvinglarger governance issues. More importantly, these proposals and the seedlings of soft lawthat they embody have begun to lay the path for a more nuanced and multi-prongedapproach to global forests management.

World Summit on Sustainable Development/Johannesburg Plan ofImplementation. The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), held inJohannesburg, South Africa in September 2002, took stock of 10 years ofimplementation of Agenda 21, and agreed on two main documents, the Plan ofImplementation and the Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development. ThePlan of Implementation is a framework for action to implement Agenda 21, whereas theDeclaration outlines the path taken from Rio to Johannesburg. Both documentsemphasize the important linkages between poverty eradication, the protection of theenvironment and the sustainable use of natural resources.

Forest-related issues were highlighted at the Summit, particularly in the Plan ofImplementation. In particular, Paragraph 45 focuses exclusively on forests andsustainable forest management and reflects the outcome of the Ministerial Declarationof the second session of the UNFF. The paragraph stressed, among other things, thekey role of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) and the CollaborativePartnership on Forest to facilitate and coordinate implementation of SFM at thenational, regional and global levels. It further identified SFM as essential in achievingsustainable development and as a critical means to eradicate poverty, to significantlyreduce deforestation, to halt the loss of biodiversity, to prevent land and resourcedegradation, to improve food security and access to safe drinking water. In addition, itrecognized the multiple benefits of both natural and planted forests and trees contributeto the well-being of the planet and humanity.

In addition, and perhaps more importantly, the Summit was the occasion for severalcountries to launch official WSSD partnerships, including public-private partnerships(discussed below). These so called type II initiatives included three major forestpartnerships with regional focus, namely the Asia Forest Partnership, the Congo BasinForest Partnership and the Model Forest Network in Latin America and the Caribbean


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(see below). Several other forest-related partnerships were launched at WSSD, or havebeen announced since WSSD, including a forest landscape restoration initiative; systemplanning and management of transboundary ecosystem resources in south-westernAmazon; and a public-private partnership for SFM.

Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The Millennium Development Goals(MDGs) were an effort to summarize and capture within a clearly articulated set ofgoals, targets and indicators the development aspirations agreed on at internationalconferences and world summits during the 1990s. At the end of the decade, worldleaders summed up the key goals and targets in the Millennium Declaration, which wasadopted in September 2000. The MDGs, include 8 goals, 18 targets and over 40indicators, have significantly focused the work of the United Nations over the last fewyears.

The eight MDGs deal with poverty and hunger, education, gender equality, child health,maternal health, HIV/AIDS, environmental sustainability, and global partnerships.Notionally, forests issues are a part of MDG-7 on environmental sustainability. Morespecifically, Target 2 within this goal is to “reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010,a significant reduction in the rate of loss.” Within this, one of the stated indicators isthat “deforestation slows and more forests are designated for biodiversityconservation.” Unfortunately, and unlike most other MDGs, the targets for this goalare hazy and non-specific. They give good intention without accountability for clearresults. This is itself a testimony to the fact that despite years of internationaldiscussion we do not yet even have a clear consensus of what the ‘target’ state of globalforests should be in real metrics.

However, as we have argued throughout this study, it would be a mistake to see only thisspecific target within this specific goal as the one that relates to global forestsmanagement. Indeed, as with most things dealing with development, the first goal – onabsolute poverty – may be the most important one relating to the future of globalforests. Although consumption issues are not at all dealt with in the MDGs, these toowould have immense impact on the future of global forests. Although, in general, MDGshave had a perceptible impact on national programs in the area of forests this soft lawinstrument has not yet had much of an impact – largely because it failed to providemeasurable indicators and targets and even more so because it has again focussed onlyon one element of global forests management rather than tackling the complexity ofthe issue in its various dimensions. Once again, we see a potentially very powerful softlaw instrument being sub-optimally used because it fails to understand the nature of theproblems at hand.

Non-Legally Binding Instrument on All Types of Forests (NLBI). After 15 yearsof discussions and negotiations, in 2007, the UNFF finally reached an agreement on anon-legally binding instrument on all types of forests, including 4 global objectives onforests. The long quest for a binding agreement that had begun well before the RioEarth Summit may not yet have been laid to rest, but a sense that a drastically differentapproach was needed was put in place. This new global agreement, the “Non-LegallyBinding Instrument on All Types of Forests” (NLBI), calls for greater international

cooperation, an enabling environment and national action to reduce deforestation,reverse the loss of forest cover, prevent forest degradation, promote sustainablelivelihoods, and reduce poverty for all forest-dependent peoples.

This instrument aims to strengthen political commitment and action at all levels toimplement effectively sustainable management of all types of forests and to achieve theshared global objectives on forests; enhance the contribution of forests to theachievement of the internationally agreed development goals, including the MillenniumDevelopment Goals, in particular with respect to poverty eradication and environmentalsustainability; and provide a framework for national action and internationalcooperation (UNGA, 2007). This instrument is voluntary and non-legally binding andapplies to all types of forests. It recognizes sustainable forest management as a dynamicand evolving concept, and defines its aim as maintaining and enhancing the economic,social and environmental values of all types of forests, for the benefit of present andfuture generations. In essence, the NLBI has accepted that a narrowly focussed bindingagreement – which focuses either on a single type of forests use or a specific type offorests only – is neither politically feasible at this time, nor necessarily desirable. Non-binding as it might be, this important soft law instrument is an important step forwardtowards a more nuanced and multi-faceted approach that is structured around aportfolio of instruments, rather than solitary silver bullets.

The NLBI asks also for measures at the international level, such as concerted efforts tosecure sustained high-level political commitment to strengthen the means ofimplementation for sustainable forest management, including financial resources, toprovide support, in particular for developing countries as well as countries witheconomies in transition, as well as to mobilize and provide significantly increased newand additional financial resources from private, public, domestic and internationalsources to and within developing countries as well as countries with economies intransition.

Although the adoption of the NLBI has been seen by some as a landmark event (Asadi,2008) and a significant step forwards, the real test of its relevance lies in itsimplementation. It signifies the recognition that action does not necessitate a bindingagreement, however, the NLBI has yet to demonstrate its potential. The key to theNLBI’s efficacy lies in agreeing on, and implementing, a global financial mechanismcapitalizing on new ideas developed during UNFF-7 (see below under section Means ofimplementation). The failure of reaching an agreement at UNFF-8 is a reminder thatdoing so is not easy and the governance system itself is quite capable of rejecting andresisting innovations that fundamentally question it.

c. Market-Based and Non-State InstrumentsThe preceding analysis suggests that a novel system of accountability has emerged inthe area of global forest governance (Chan and Pattberg, 2008). A transformation ofaccountability has progressed through different stages. The traditional state-basedsystem accountability system faced a major challenge in the light of an intensifyingforest crisis and the failure of governments to react to the demands of citizens to halt

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Box 5.2 Forest Stewardship Council Principles1. Compliance with laws and FSC Principles: Forest management shall respectall applicable laws of the country in which they occur, and international treatiesand agreements to which the country is a signatory, and comply with all FSCPrinciples and criteria.

2. Tenure and use rights and responsibilities: Long-term tenure and use rightsto the land and forest resources shall be clearly defined, documented and legallyestablished.

deforestation and forest degradation. As a result of changing actor strategies andrelations, corporations moved to the forefront of the debate, both as a cause andpotential solution to the forest problem. As a reaction to the accountability deficit ofbusiness-driven schemes and within the context of an increasingly paralyzedinternational negotiation process a cooperative private regime that combines marketmechanisms with the credibility of civil society organizations has emerged.

Independent Forest Certification. Certification is one of the most important non-state compliance mechanisms. Forest certification is the process by which anindependent third party certifies that a process or forest product conforms to agreedstandards and requirements (Gulbrandson, Arts, 2004). There are two types ofcertification: system based standards and performance based standards. System-basedstandards look at the entire process of production of a product, while performance-basedstandards look only at how the product performs. Although product certification hasproved to be a very effective means of international governance – and maybe becauseof that very reason - it is also one of the more contentious issues in sustainable forestgovernance because it relates directly to trade. Because states have been hesitant toenter into binding arrangements regarding forests certification, non-state actors haveentered the certification space and have created a number of very effective programs,probably none is better known than the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

Based on initiatives of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the FSC was created in 1993 andincludes a number of other leading NGOs like Greenpeace and the Rainforest Alliance.The FSC is simultaneously a partnership of NGO’s, a business, as well as a certificationprogram (Bendell, 2000). It is also a recognition on the part of major environmentalNGOs as well as corporations that profit-making and responsible corporate behaviourneed not necessarily be at odds with each other (Arts, Buizer, Forest Policy andEconomics, 2006). But most importantly, for our purpose, it is also a governanceinstrument because in very practical ways its certification program ends up significantlyinfluencing international trade flows in forests products and, in fact, impacting themanagement of large forest tracts. Working directly with the private sector the FSCestablished nine principles for well managed forests, which were revised in 1996 and2000, during which time a tenth principle was added (See Box 5.2). These principlesform the basis of a certification scheme.

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Because of the relative success of FSC certification – which now amounts to more than100 million hectares worldwide - competitor certification schemes have been developedin Canada (the Canada Standard Association (CSA)) and in the US (US SustainableForestry Initiative (SFI)). In Europe the Pan-European Forest Certification (PEFC) waslaunched in 1999. Currently about two-thirds of certified forests are certified by PEFC,and one-third by FSC. The area covered by certification has grown from 44 million hain 2000 to 300 million ha in 2007, but this still represents only about 8% of the 3.9billion ha of forested land. Only 1% of tropical forests are certified (Cerulli, 2009).


3. Indigenous peoples’ rights: The legal and customary rights of indigenouspeoples to own, use and manage their lands, territories and resources shall berecognized and respected.

4. Community relations and workers’ rights: Forest management operations shallmaintain or enhance the long-term social and economic well-being of forestworkers and local communities.

5. Benefits from the forest: Forest management operations shall encourage theefficient use of the forest’s multiple products and services to ensure economicviability and a wide range of environmental and social benefits.

6. Environmental impact: Forest management shall conserve biological diversityand its associated values, water resources, soils, and unique and fragileecosystems and landscapes, and, by so doing, maintain the ecological functionsand the integrity of the forest.

7. Management plan: A management plan - appropriate to the scale and plan ofthe operations – shall be written, implemented, and kept up to date. The long-term objectives of management, and the means of achieving them, shall be clearlystated.

8. Monitoring and assessment: Monitoring shall be conducted – appropriate tothe scale and intensity of forest management – to asses the condition of theforest, yields of forest products, chain of custody, management activities and theirsocial and environmental impacts.

9. Maintenance of high conservation value forests: Management activities in highconservation value forests shall maintain or enhance the attributes, which definesuch forests. Decisions regarding high conservation value forests shall always beconsidered in the context of a precautionary approach.

10. Plantations: Plantations shall be planned and managed in accordance withPrinciples and Criteria 1 to 9, and Principle 10 and its Criteria. While plantationscan provide an array of social and economic benefits, and can contribute tosatisfying the world’s need for forest products, they should complement themanagement of, reduce pressures on, and promote the restoration andconservation of natural forests.

Source: FSC Principles and Criteria for Forest Stewardship, Document 1.2, Revised February 2000, Oaxaca:FCS.


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Although this proliferation of certification schemes and the variations within them hasraised unresolved governance challenges of its own, the success of non-state-basedcertification and the corporate support it has received, have demonstrated the efficacyof the general proposition. But they also demonstrate that while such schemes can andshould be a part of the portfolio of instruments for better global forest governance, theycannot – in and of themselves – be the central solution.

Ministerial Processes for Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG).In May, 1998, the G-8 launched an action program on forests focussing on theelimination of illegal logging and illegal timber trade. The action program sought tocomplement actions undertaken at regional and international levels, and states the G-8's commitment to identifying actions in both producer and consumer countries. SeveralFLEG processes are now running in parallel. The issue of illegal logging has come to thefore in international forest policy debates since 2000, highlighting much wider issuessuch as appropriate forest governance, effective law enforcement, trade, andinvestment.

The G-8 action program motivated a partnership on forest law enforcement for EastAsia between the World Bank, the UK and the US, which led to the FLEG East AsiaMinisterial Conference in September 2001. The Conference adopted a MinisterialDeclaration, whereby participating countries committed themselves to, inter alia,intensify national efforts and strengthen bilateral, regional and multilateralcollaboration to address forest crime and violations of forest law. Soon afterwards,Ministers from several countries in Africa expressed interest in focusing specifically onforest law enforcement and governance, and asked assistance from the World Bank(with sponsorship from the United States, UK and France) to convene an African FLEGMinisterial process. The AFLEG Ministerial Conference convened in Yaoundé,Cameroon in October 2003, drawing together ministers from Africa, Europe and NorthAmerica. The Conference resulted in the endorsement of a Ministerial Declaration andAction Plan for AFLEG. The AFLEG process is part of the New Partnership for Africa'sDevelopment (NEPAD) and is intended to strengthen international and multi-stakeholder commitment.

In May 2003, the European Union published its Action Plan on Forest LawEnforcement, Governance and Trade. This outlines proposals for voluntary licensing toensure that only legally verified timber could be imported into the EU, procurementpolicies that discriminate against illegal timber, encouragement of responsiblefinancing, and support for private sector-led trade initiatives. The FLEG processesaround the world have also opened space for action and calls for accountability by civilsociety. In Latin America, for example, where an official FLEG process is in the pipeline,civil society is particularly active.

Although there remains strong potential to further develop and scale-up FLEGinitiatives, its true value lies in the political commitment to implementation on theground. Recognizing this key condition, up to now progress has been slow and uneven.Furthermore, the limited scope of FLEG remains a stumbling block.

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Public-Private Mechanisms. Binding lawmaking, rule design and control ofcompliance, both at the national and international level, are the classical approaches ofgovernments. Developments in sustainable development governance as well as insustainable forest governance have shown that they are being complemented and, tosome extent, being replaced by other types of policy instruments, especially privatesector based instruments. One such instrument is the so-called ‘public-privatepartnerships’ (PPPs) which rely on the voluntary commitments of non-state actors,working in collaboration with states, in order to accelerate the implementation ofsustainable development goals (Bartsch, 2006; Visseren-Hamakers and Glasbergen,2006).

As Martens (2007, p.4) aptly put “’Partnerships’ as a term is rapidly becoming the newmantra shaping the UN discourse on global politics. In fact, the term now coversvirtually every interaction between state and non-state actors, particularly between theUN and the business sector.” Partnerships indeed represent a vast multiplicity ofprojects, institutional models, and networks; with diverse geographical scopes,durations, and issue areas (Biermann et al., 2007). In contrast to the Rio Summit whoseprincipal focus was on norm and rule creation, the focus of the Johannesburg Summiton Sustainable Development was on policy implementation. The notion of ‘public-private partnerships’ that came out of WSSD was informed by this notion. As Mert(2009) points out: “The change taking place can be summarised as a shift towardsderegulation in certain areas and levels of governance, an emphasis on voluntaryschemes, increasing deployment of market based approaches, and a change in thenature of non-state actor involvement in decision making (from activities that focus oninfluencing governmental decision-making such as lobbying or agenda setting, to actualrule making and standard setting).”

A number of the public-private partnerships announced at WSSD were related toforests. Three examples are given in Box 5.3.


Box 5.3 Examples of PPPs on ForestsAsia Forest Partnership: The Government of Japan and its partners, includingseveral other governments, intergovernmental organizations and NGOs,launched the Asia Forest Partnership to promote sustainable forest managementin the region. The collaborative arrangement addresses issues related to goodgovernance and law enforcement, capacity building, illegal logging, forest firesand degraded lands. Building on international and regional activities, cooperationextends to such areas as the development of forest policies, plans and programs;the use of satellite data and mapping; participatory management; human andinstitutional development; and intersectoral coordination within governments.The partnership expects to enhance ongoing sustainable forest managementinitiatives by providing a framework for conducting research.

Congo Basin Forest Partnership: At WSSD, the Governments of South Africaand the United States, along with Conservation International, WWF, the WildlifeConservation Society and many others, announced the establishment of the


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Although this market-based governance response has potential, it has also itsconstrains:• First, private governance in the form of certification may systematically benefit

some types of actors while it clearly disadvantages other players in the field;• Second, the need to secure long-term financial stability for private systems of rules,

includes the possibility of moving from an independent non-profit system agent to abusiness of its own;

• Third, to function as an effective mechanism of governance towards sustainable development, market based systems have to overcome to basic obstacles: (i) the demandfor green or socially acceptable products needs to be sufficiently high and stable to change business practices beyond shortlived public relations campaigns, (ii) a sufficient supply of certified products is needed, without a visible appearance in the market, certified products cannot compete with their non-certified competitors.

• Fourth, the tendency of multiple competing schemes within and across issue areas,resulting in the risks of softening the “voluntary approach” (Pattberg, 2005).

5.4 Constraints to ImplementationThe global forest governance system has been prolific in negotiating agreements, but,

Congo Basin Forest Partnership to promote economic development, alleviatepoverty, improve governance and enhance conservation of natural resources inthe region. These shared goals are pursued through a network of national parksand protected areas, well managed forestry concessions and assistance tocommunities that depend on forest and wildlife resources in several keylandscapes in six Central African countries: Cameroon, the Central AfricanRepublic, the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guineaand Gabon. Working together, governments, business and civil society arecommitted to investing time, energy and resources to bring about positive changein natural resource management and sustainable livelihoods in one of the world’slargest blocks of intact and interconnected tropical rain forest.

Model Forest Network in Latin America and the Caribbean: This collaborativeinitiative supports the development and establishment of a Regional Network ofModel Forests in Latin America and the Caribbean. Model Forests are abouttranslating higher-level policy goals into achievable and locally relevant modelsof sustainable use and best practices for the conservation of all forest resources.They use locally-based partnership to find working solutions to forest resourcemanagement issues through capacity building, improved decision-making andgovernance systems, economic diversification, integrated resource management,and poverty alleviation. Its lead partner is the “International Model ForestNetwork Secretariat” (Canada) and the 25. Governments of Canada, Argentina,Chile and the Dominican Republic, together with the United NationsDevelopment Programme, are involved in the partnership.

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except for a few exceptions, has a rather dismal record in turning agreements into actualchange and implementation on the ground. Lack of implementation, coordination,compliance, enforcement and effectiveness is a common problem in the internationalsystem (Najam, 2006). The crux of the challenge is that system has been so franticallyobsessed with negotiations which were more process than content related, that it haspaid little attention to implementation. Since negotiation happens internationally andimplementation happens domestically, it is not surprising that a system composedmainly to ‘negotiators’ will do exactly that which they do best: negotiate. However,implementation of negotiated texts requires that actors have the intention and capacityto make them work domestically (Zaelke et al, eds, 2005; Weiss and Jacobsen, eds, 2001).There are also at least three key hurdles at the global level that have constrained theimplementation on global forest issues: a lack of financial resources, a lack of the meansto compliance and enforcement, and sovereignty concerns.

(a) FinancingFinancial constraints – especially for developing countries – are clearly amongst themost important hurdles to implementation. Mobilizing new and additional financialresources for sustainable forest management is certainly the hurdle that is most talkedabout and which generated the most heated debates. Developing countries would liketo have such resources provided by richer, more industrialized countries and would likethe financing to be dependable, sufficient and without strings attached. Donor countrieswould prefer to keep their contributions low and seek safeguards and transparency inthe use of whatever resources they provide. Everyone seems to agree that nearly notenough resources are actually available and resources that are available are usedineffectively (Najam, Papa, Taiyab, 2006). Therein lies the problem.

Forest financing sources are classified into public and private, national andinternational. Domestic funding may come from general government revenue andrevenue from state-owned forests. Private sources consist of forest owners, communitiesand forest industry, philanthropic funds and donors, as well as non-governmentalorganizations (NGOs) of various types. In the case of many NGOs funds are raised fromexternal sources. International public sources include bilateral aid agencies andmultilateral financing institutions. Private sources are diversified, consisting ofinstitutional and individual investors, the forest industry, various NGOs etc. Foreignprivate financing can be direct or investment and loans or credits. The current annualbilateral and multilateral flows to forests are estimated at about USD 1.9 billion and theforeign direct investment (FDI) to industries at about USD 0.5 billion. The ODA toforests includes about USD 700 million for forest conservation in 2007. In addition, theconservation NGOs and philanthropy sector focuses on this thematic area. (PROFOR,2008).

Bilateral ODA to forests has mainly come from relative few sources: 95 percent isprovided by nine donors. On the receiving end, bilateral ODA is also concentratedamong recipient countries. In 2006, India absorbed 22 percent of the total forestry ODA,followed by China (13 percent) and Vietnam (12 percent). Together with Bolivia, Brazil,Cameroon, Columbia, Honduras, Indonesia, and Tanzania, these 10 countries received



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two-thirds of the total foresty ODA, which is therefore fairly highly concentrated(PROFOR, 2008).

Multilateral financing to forests is estimated at USD 0.8 billion per year in 2005-2007.The main source is the World Bank Group (WBG), and its share in the total hasincreased from 51 percent to 73 percent in 2000-2007. The other multilateral sourceshave a volumewise limited – but strategically important – role for contributing to themanagement of forests. On private sector investments there is no systematicinformation available on domestic or private foreign direct investment in the forestsector in developing countries. There is, however, a common view that the bulk of theforestry investment is from domestic sources by the formal private sector and bycommunities, landowners, and farmers.

TABLE 5.1 Overview of Forest Financing SourcesSource: Markku Simula, 2008. Financing Flows and Needs to Implement the Non-Legally Binding Instrumenton All Types of Forests. Washington, DC: The Program on Forests (PROFOR) of the World Bank.

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Table 5.1 highlights the fact that financial and technical resources for forests and forestrelated activities do not always come from obvious sources. Moreover, while resources– both financial and human – may be available, they are not always mobilized in waysthat can benefit those who most need them. Traditionally, the response to financialconstraints has been the call for more financing from international sources. However,there have never been significant resources available, and they are unlikely to becomeavailable anytime soon.

More recently, some have begun to argue that we need to broaden our search forresources beyond the traditional sources. It has been argued that there may beopportunities for new resource generation from within the private and philanthropicsectors and from market based instruments (Hoogeveen et.al., 2008). The call fordevising multi-dimensional global financial mechanisms that capitalizes on the energiesof governments, private sector, and civil society to mobilize resources for forest-relatedactivities has begun to find resonance. As Box 5.4 details it is neither easy nor simpleto introduce new and innovative financial mechanisms, but if leadership and negotiationtact is present, it is possible.


Box 5.4 How to Bring New Ideas Into the System Ever since the Rio conference a fierce debate had raged between developingcountries seeking a global forest fund and industrialized countries advocating forbetter use of existing financial arrangements. This question of how to handleforest finance and the generation of new and additional resources at the globallevel was clearly a defining issue for the future of the NLBI. Over 15 years ofdiscussion on the subject, positions had hardened, arguments had beenritualistically repeated, negotiations had become increasingly personal, and theissue of financing had become a battle that had full potential to fully derail theprocess and any hopes for the NLBI.

Against this background UNFF-7 (2008) was faced with an almost impossible taskto find a breakthrough after 15 years of stalled negotiations on financing and withstill many of the same negotiators sitting at the table. Certainly new ideas couldn’tbe found among the negotiators who had locked themselves in fixed positions forso many years that the ideas had themselves fossilize. To seek a response to thestalemate, the Chair of UNFF decided to organize two informal brainstormsessions with a small group of international governance scholars from the FletcherSchool of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, to develop innovative approachesand out of the box ideas. A former head of the UNFF secretariat was also invitedto inject context and a reality check into the brainstorming. Reviewing a wholearray of possibilities for raising financing for forests, the brainstormers developeda so-called ‘portfolio approach’ which integrated financial resources from publicsources, private sources and philanthropic initiatives, and other innovative means.

But a good idea can take you only that far. The next question was how to introducethe new conceptual approach into a negotiation process that was deeplyentrenched and adversarial. The Chair had the authority to introduce new ideas


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(b) Compliance and EnforcementWhatever is internationally agreed, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, namelysuccessful implementation. Political commitment to implement policies and take actionsat the national and local level is the foremost important aspect for successfulimplementation. Compliance is often used in the context of legally binding instruments.However, the term compliance is used more and more broadly, namely for all kind ofmechanisms, even for non-legally binding instruments, that assure accountability forimplementing agreed policies, measures and actions. However, in an internationalsystem that is anarchic by definition, states will comply only if they wish to and thereare very few tools for meaningful enforcement of commitments they may have made.Therein lies the constraint to implementation: compliance, in the absence of the meansof enforcement, can be desired but not assured.

In the absence of means of enforcement or of dispute resolution, sustainabledevelopment regimes have developed under a very different logic from other regimeslike, for example, the rule-based trade regime. Environmental regimes are relativelynew and predominantly norm-driven where the instrument of compliance is persuasionand assistance; i.e., carrots and carrots (Najam, et al. 2006). Therefore, the primarygoal of compliance mechanisms is usually to bring parties into compliance rather thanto punish them for non-compliance. When non-compliance is due to disregard forobligations, compliance mechanisms may use a “stick” such as “naming and shaming”or sanctions. Others may focus on incentives.

So compliance mechanisms are still at the developmental stage. For example, theClimate Treaty (Kyoto Protocol) and the Biodiversity Treaty (Biosafety Protocol) still

into the negotiations, but this was a high-risk approach that could threaten thecredibility of the Chair and possibly undermine his authority by turning him intothe partisan proponent of a particular idea rather than the neutral arbiter of thecommon consensus. Instead it was important to allow the idea to be introducedby an outside third party who enjoyed credibility within the UNFF and to firsttest it with key constituents and states to gauge its acceptability.

To overcome potential resistance from member states during the negotiationsby dismissing the new ideas designed by this unfamiliar group of individuals, theChair decided to share the informal paper with key World Bank experts en margeof an intergovernmental preparatory meeting in December 2006. The chairrequested the World Bank representative to further develop this new proposaland introduce their findings at UNFF-7 a few months later to see how countriesreacted to it. Not surprisingly, the final report of the World Bank stronglyresembled the original report of the Fletcher team and proved to facilitate thebreakthrough during the negotiations. Most delegations welcomed the innovativeideas presented by the World Bank who eventually claimed ownership of it.Indeed, they did so with enough enthusiasm that by the end of UNFF-7, theportfolio approach had been adopted as the preferred mechanism for globalfinancing for forests.

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have no functioning compliance mechanisms, despite the fact that they are providedfor in the treaties. In practice, we find that treaties which link the compliancemechanism to trade sanctions have the intended effective implementation, as is thecase with WTO and CITES, although CITES still has great difficulty in implementingsanctions. While compliance and enforcement is weak in all sustainable developmentregimes, it is even weaker on forests. Even the normative agreements that have beenreached in other conventions has been absent on forests and therefore there is not muchto comply with either. Moreover, because forest implementation can only be local,compliance can also only be local and very often becomes a subject of domestic ratherthan international policy. Creating an enabling environment, which includes incentives,financial resources and authority, is the key for successful national implementation.Compliance is only the final piece of the puzzle.

(c) SovereigntySimply to use the word ‘global’ in a world that is still organized around nation states isto invite a discussion on the concept of sovereignty and what it means in a globalizingworld with global challenges. The notion is sovereignty – that individual nations havefull and sole rights to deal with their own resources as they wish – is something that allglobal issues have to deal with to some extent, something that sustainable developmenthas to deal with to great extent, and something that becomes particularly thorny in theforests debate. Because forests are on territory and because territory is the very basisof sovereignty, this concept has tended to become particularly sensitive in forests debate.Unlike the upper atmosphere, or even the deep seas, to which individual nations cannotstake a claim, forests are clearly within national territories and therefore are ‘national’and not ‘global’ resources. The impacts of what happens in national forest can be global,but it is an established principle of international policy that forests are sovereignnational territory. The question, then, is how do we make and implement global policyon what is clearly national territory?

This, in fact, is one reason why global agreements on forests have remained illusive.Increasingly, however, a realization has set in that the purpose of global diplomacy onforests is not to ‘negotiate’ over sovereignty but to strike global deals that allowindividual nations to align their national (sovereign) interests with the global good. Thenature of forests makes them a international public good. Moreover, citizens withineach nation are also citizens of the globe and very often they demand the national policymeets their individual interests both as national citizens and as global citizens. Manycitizen groups working on forest issues, for example, are global groups. By workingtogether, highly motivated local activists can achieve the competence and credibility tobring the full weight of international opinion to bear on governments. At the same timethey are representing conflicting ideas, not connected to the decision0making processesand are in cases undermine local intiatives.

Importantly, we should also note that the perceptions of sovereignty are slowly changingand there is strong pressure – domestically as well as internationally – to act whenglobal commons are threatened (Chayes and Chayes, 1995). But, these developments


lead to the need of governments to play a stronger role within the globalizing world.Globalization will put new demands on government, to set domestic policies which arein line with international and regional policies and to intervene proactively in thesetting of global policies and actions so that they reflect not only global, but also nationalpriorities.

5.5 Concluding ThoughtsEffective implementation needs a paradigm shift in the way current societies andorganizations are governed (Pierre, 2000). Due to processes such as increasing statefailure, market liberalization, internationalization, decentralization andindividualization, the old paradigm of top-down, state-led, ‘command and control’ waysof steering no longer suffice. Instead, new forms of multi-actor and multi-levelgovernance and new types of policy instruments have been propagated: network-likearrangements of public and private actors, self-regulation by market organizations,public-private partnerships, emission trading schemes, covenants, certificationprograms, etc. (Bendell, 2000; Glasbergen et al., 2007; Kickert et al., 1997). Besidespublic-voluntary ones, private rules, such as certification programs have beenintroduced. Here, independent, private systems of monitoring, verification andaccreditation have been set up to build up credibility among producers and consumers(Cashore et al., 2004.). These systems appear relatively successful, at least moresuccessful in terms of enforcing compliance than the voluntary approaches ofgovernments.

All of this feeds into the concerns that the international system related to sustainableforest management is operating at a suboptimal level: its agreements, institutions andresources are unable to achieve their full potential and possible synergies remainunexploited. The very ability to address complex interconnected forest challenges isquestioned because the incoherent system of solutions is becoming even more complexthan the problems it was meant to address. The next, and final, chapter will, inter alia,seek to outline the contours of a new diplomacy that could respond to this verychallenge.


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Chapter 6

Conclusions: A New Diplomacy for the GlobalGovernance of Forests

Co-authors: Hans Hoogeveen and Patrick Verkooijen

Any theoretical approach to understanding cooperation and discord at a global levelneeds to recognize the multiplicity of variables that jointly affect outcomes. But for ourscientific knowledge to increase, we need to focus at any one time on a limited set ofexplanatory variables. In thinking about such explanatory variables, we began byseeking to categorize potential variables according to whether research and thinkingwere likely to yield intellectual progress. We began this study with the realization thatmuch of what needs to be done to manage our world’s forests better has to be donenationally, even locally. Nothing in the preceding chapters has changed that assumption.However, this study has purposely sought to focus on the global governance of forestsnot simply because recent years have seen multiple efforts to find global governancesolutions to forest challenges but, more importantly, because global decisions andstructures have the ability to directly impact – negatively or positively – the directionof what happens locally. The goal is to expand our understanding of the system of globalforest governance and its underlying patterns and what kind of decisions and actionare needed to achieve the agreed goals, objections and targets. Bad decisions andinefficient institutions at the global level can not only distract from, they can actuallyimpede, good efforts at the domestic and local levels (Banuri, et al., 2002). Conversely,good decisions and effective institutions at the global level have the potential to not justfacilitate but propel good outcomes at the domestic and local level – the level wherethese outcomes mean the most (Banuri. et al, 2002). This is so for most issues, andparticularly so for the complex and interconnected challenges of sustainabledevelopment.

As the first decade of the twenty-first century comes to a close, mounting challengesfacing the world are characterized by the intensifying interconnectedness of global andregional issues: political tensions, , financial, economic and food crises, climate change,water shortages, ecosystem disruptions, increasing instability and persistent poverty.The food riots around the world in 2008 were manifestations of this trend that blurs theboundaries between political, climate, energy, agriculture, trade, technology and otherfactors. Later, the financial crisis and economic crisis demonstrated how quicklynational calamities could spread and affect development strategies far beyond thefinancial and economic arena in one country, requiring international responses(Friedrich et.al., 2009). In all these crises, the disjuncture between their global natureand the national centers of decision-making was obvious. The current multiple andinterrelated crises have demonstrated the inadequacy of the global governance systemand highlighted the need for new approaches. Such changes usually take a very long

time. The need for a strategic reorientation of our governance system underlies therecommendations for analysis and research that follows.

How, then, as we attempted to cover in this research, do we move towards creatingbetter decisions and more effective institutions for the global governance of forests?And, what can we learn about how the evolving system of the diplomacy of global forestgovernance works by analyzing the components of the system that others have missedby using more piecemeal approaches? Building on the research findings presented in theprevious chapters, this concluding chapter seeks to respond to these research questionsand, by doing so, outlines an indicative agenda for future scholarly work on theeffectiveness of the evolving system of sustainable development diplomacy.

The task, then, is to pinpoint the determinants of success or failure in efforts to forman effective system of global forest governance in international society. In thisconcluding chapter, we consolidate this process by deriving some hypotheses aboutfactors governing the likelihood of success in efforts to develop effective governancesystems and applying these hypotheses, in a preliminary way, to the system of globalforest governance.

Based on the evidence from our analysis of the working of the global forest governancein practice of the last 16 years (inductive approach), compared with the availableresearch and literature (deductive approach) our response to the overarching questionhow the system of the diplomacy of global forest governance, analyzing the threecomponents (issues, actors and institutions and policy instrumentation) in an integratedway can be made more effective in order to achieve the internationally agreed goals,objectives and targets is predicated on three key overarching propositions related to,respectively, the analytical framework, the policy response and the methodologicalapproach relevant to the system of global forest governance.

! First, that with any given challenge, the complexity of the solution has to match thecomplexity of the problem. As Chapter 3 illustrates, global forest governance is drivenby the multiple linkages and multifaceted complexity of forest-related issues – such asclimate change, trade and biodiversity. Adding to the complexity is a wide range of ac-tors, as described in Chapter 4, and a multitude of policy tools presented in Chapter 5.Therefore, global forest governance is a highly interlinked and complex system that isthe sum of organizations, policy instruments, financing mechanisms, rules, procedures,and norms that regulate forest processes – and, on a broader level, sustainable develop-ment – at the global, national, and local levels. The current system has the tendency tosimplify the problem in order to develop to make the problem more manageable. Ouranalysis showed that more effective global forest governance will come not from address-ing any one (or a few) of these elements, but from systematically tackling these myriadelements of global diplomacy and governance and, more importantly, the linkages be-tween them. This makes the global governance of forests what social scientists call a‘wicked problem’ (Rittel and Weber, 1973): a problem that is inherently complex and towhich there are no simple solutions, because of complex interconnections. The simplifi-cation of forest policy into a continuing battle between ‘protecting forests’ from humanintrusion, use or exploitation on the one hand and ‘utilizing forests’ for legitimate liveli-hoods or land conversion on the other has led to suboptimal outcomes (World Bank,


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2004). More recently, the sudden spike in interest in forests as a ‘carbon sink’ has againraised fears that other uses of forests, including for human habitation and use, could beoverwhelmed by this new interest (TFD, 2008). Meanwhile, the continuing loss of valu-able environmental services because of destructive forest management and utilizationpractices, and the inability to halt continuing illegal exploitation of forest resources isimpeding sustainable development and the improvement of human wellbeing worldwide(Christy, et.al., 2007). Indeed, by definition of the problem, simple solutions become in-effective. Solutions that seek to ‘simplify’ the problem by assuming away part of thecomplexity are doomed to failure because of the inherent complexity of the issues. Rec-ognizing the ongoing-desire of decision-makers for stability and simplification, an impor-tant conclusion of our research is the notion that complexity is here to stay and that itcan be looked upon not necessarily as a constraint but possibly as a vehicle of progressthat contributes to more effective governance systems (Teisman et.al., 2008).

! Our second proposition flows directly from the above and posits the need – indeed, thenecessity – for a ‘new diplomacy’ that recognizes not only the inherent complexity ofthe issue but also the changed realities of global forest governance. Diplomacy providesus the context and the tools for global governance, including of sustainable development,and within that context of the world’s forests. However, as with a host of other issues,the nature of the forest issue and its many complex inter-linkages to a whole host ofother issues raises challenges for traditional practices of state diplomacy. At the sametime, diplomacy itself has changed. Not only has the pace of international interaction in-creased on an increased number of issues, diplomatic ‘actors’ have themselves trans-formed. For example, diplomacy is no longer the domain only of Ministries of ForeignAffairs, experts from a whole host of specialized agencies within states, but also beyondstates, are now involved in and often shape, international diplomacy. At the same timethe current UN practice shows that by simplifying the problems at stake experts in a spe-cific area, whether it would be forests, agriculture or climate changes, are dominatingnegotiations. They are not capable enough to link issues in order to find real solutions.At the other hand the diplomats have not enough understanding of the issues at handto make a difference. In a globalized world, the nature as well as number of issues thatrequire global diplomatic attention also increases. As the interests of states in the globalsystem multiply, so does the need to manage the interactions between states. Technologyand communication provide us with new tools for diplomatic interaction, but also makenew demands on the craft as well as the substance of diplomacy. This reality of a complexissue and the dynamics of changing notions of diplomacy prompt the call for a ‘newdiplomacy’ on global forests governance.2 (Najam, Christopoulou and Moomaw, 2004).

! Finally, our third proposition is derived from our recognition that for a better under-standing of the evolving system of global forest governance, or sustainable developmentdiplomacy more broadly, the relationship between the parts must be studied, assumingthat the relationships are mutual, emergent and dynamic (Teisman et.al., 2008). Suchan integrated and evolutionary approach to governance increases our understanding of 2 The term “new diplomacy” refers to the system of negotiation and governance of non-traditional diplomatic issues in-cluding international and global issues such as climate change, forests, biodiversity, fisheries, human rights and human-itarian intervention. These issues require domestic implementation, and involve a multiplicity of state and non-stateactors.

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Conclusions

this system and thereby reducing the risks of a reductionist approach. We acknowledgethat our analysis of the evolving system of global forest governance is not sufficient, norintended, to constitute a conclusive test of the hypotheses, as presented below, for thebroader field of sustainable development diplomacy. Building upon the working assump-tion that the case study we have selected has been in place long enough to systematicallyanalyze the critical determinants for the development of the system and its effectiveness,an inductive-deductive approach allows for the development and initial testing of a setof hypotheses which are distilled from the forest case study. In this, our principal find-ings in response to the research questions about the functioning of the system of globalforest governance and its diplomacy are derived from the research presented in the firstfive chapters. Although the forest case study is sufficiently diverse to provide generalpreliminary insights into the various behavioral mechanisms for the field of sustainabledevelopment diplomacy as a whole, this case study must be seen as an intellectualspringboard by which we attempt to trigger a line of analysis that could well result inthe formulation of a research agenda for this newly emerging research field by probingthe relevance of our hypotheses to actual behavior in related case studies within thebroader field of sustainable development diplomacy.

In the context of these three overarching propositions and in response to the researchquestions presented in section 1.7, we have developed some initial hypotheses aboutthe determinants of success in institutional bargaining and make use of thesehypotheses, in a preliminary way, to illuminate the process of forming more effectivegovernance systems for sustainable forest management. These hypotheses form thecore of what a ‘new diplomacy’ might look like if it were to embrace the inherentcomplexity of global forest governance leading to enhanced governance capacity to dealeffectively with complex problems. Within this framework, we will also elaborate on thethree propositions themselves and why they are so central to changing the globalresponse to forest governance. Building directly on the preceding discussion and inresponse to the overarching research question what we can learn about how the systemof the diplomacy of global forest governance has evolved in order to achieve theinternationally agreed goals, objectives and targets, we believe that there are at least sixhypotheses that are central to devising a new approach, what we are calling the “newdiplomacy for global forest governance” The points we raise here are especiallypertinent in the context of forests, but they are not unique to the forest issue. Indeed,it is our contention that forests are not atypical at all. Instead, they are an exemplar ofa new set of complex global problems (including, for example, climate change, globalfinance and food security) that are crying out for an alternative approach to diplomacy– one that embraces the complexity of the problem, is not state-centric, involves amultitude of stakeholders, operates differently at different policy scales, and seek anarray of appropriate toolkits rather than single solutions. Following the thirdproposition, these working hypotheses also set the stage for the formation of anindicative research agenda for the emerging field of sustainable development diplomacymore broadly.

Our key arguments about why global forest governance is a particularly difficultchallenge are already made in the previous chapters. The purpose of this concludingchapter is not to repeat these arguments, but to derive from them the determinants of


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success of a new diplomacy for the global governance of forests in response to theresearch questions outlined in section 1.7. We will contextualize this analysis withinthe realities of the forests issue, but our central contention remains that these six keyhypotheses are not limited to the forests issue per se. Indeed, the logic of the argumentsuggests that a new diplomacy on the forests issue is intrinsically interrelated to a newdiplomacy on a whole host of other related issues (such as trade, agriculture, climatechange, biodiversity).

In response to the interrelated focal areas encompassing the system of global forestgovernance, issues, actors and institutions and policy instrumentation (as introducedin section 1.7) and analyzed in the preceding chapters, we have distilled the maintheoretical findings around scale and subsidiarity, issues and arenas, actors,negotiations, instruments and leadership. The attempt here is to draw out a keyhypothesis on each and to integrate these into a cohesive set of connected ideas thatsteer us towards a new diplomacy for the global governance of forests. As indicatedbefore, these hypotheses do not license any unqualified predictions about thefunctioning of the system of sustainable development diplomacy more broadly, butprovide a testing ground and tentative research agenda for other case studies within thisemerging field with a view to deepen and broaden our knowledge on this.

Hypothesis 1. Scale and Subsidiarity: Identification and attribution of theappropriate scale increases the probability of success of the system of globalforest governance.Based on the analysis in this study, we argue that global forest diplomacy has been toofocused at the apex, or the global policy level, even when the issues of actualimplementation are neither best understood nor best implemented at that level. Fromour case study we learned that UN headquarters discussions generally tend to operatein a particular logic of global inter-state politics. One where broad national interestsdefine not just the language but also the substance of negotiations. One where issuesget intertwined and subsumed within larger ongoing debates on delicate powerdynamics, and one where national prestige and image can overwhelm the issuecomplexities and local realities that are triggered by those complexities. Forests andsome forests stakeholders, particularly those with smaller voices, can often getsubsumed in this operational logic. This logic of global negotiations is not justimportant, but central, to any international discourse. Our research showed that thepractice of UN negotiations operates around long-established distinctions between“North” and “South”, between G-8 and G-77, between “East” and “West”, and so on.These are important and relevant distinctions, but the “Four Realities” frameworkpresented in Chapter 4 provides a useful illustration of how interests around forestsissues do not always divide around the obvious North-South or developing-developedlines that so often dominate UN discourse (Maini, 2003). The realities of forests inSuriname and Guyana are very different from those in Indonesia or India, but may bequite similar to those in Gabon or Brunei. Similarly, Norway, Russia and Canada mayhave far more in common than Canada and the United States when it comes to forests.For that matter, Canada and Indonesia may have some forests interests in common that

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Canada and the United States may not. The distinction here is not just ‘regional,’ it isaround forests-related interests. Our analysis showed that lumping countries andinterests together in very large arrangements dilutes the issues resulting in suboptimaloutcomes (Maini, 2004).

To increase the probability of success of the system of global forest governance, spaceneeds also to be carved up for a more local discourse, for dealing with local and regionaldistinctions and nuances, and shared concerns and interests that do not cross normalglobal policy negotiation lines. It is important to note that our hypothesis does not implyto turn ‘global’ diplomacy into ‘local’ diplomacy. But it suggests that unless a space iscarved out for accommodating and responding to the more local, domestic, and regionalrealities, the efficacy of the global thrust will be progressively diluted and couldultimately erode totally. No matter where global forest diplomacy takes place, the logicof UN negotiations needs to take into account the subsidiarity principle and should betempered by a more regional logic that resides closer to where the forests themselvesare and where common interests are shared. This implies that the global level shouldprimarily focus on setting goals and targets, means of implementation, includingfinancial resources and technology transfer.

The dominant structures of traditional diplomacy assume and insist that the metrics ofbroad international organization and discourse that have been derived from issues likeinternational security, disarmament, or finance be imposed upon all internationaldiscussions. Our analysis identified that imposing these metrics on discussions offorests, where the nuances of substance as well as politics is quite different, leads to asystem of global forest governance that is unlikely to be induce changes in the behaviorof states and other actors whose behavior is directly involved in the relevant behavioralcomplex. As we examined in our study, the result to date has been policies andagreements that are not implemented and do not produce the results we are looking forin terms of changing the behavioral complex.

The recognition that not everything can be resolved from within the UN system impliestwo very important aspects in how a new model for global forest diplomacy mightoperate. First, it implies that while not all issues can be resolved from within the UN,some issues can – and, maybe, some issues can only be resolved from there. Secondly, itimplies that a first step in the new global forest diplomacy should be to determine whatthe appropriate level of discourse and action is for which discussion; i.e., the principleof subsidiarity.

Indeed, there are aspects of global forest diplomacy for which apex-level negotiations arenecessary. For example, the truly global aspects – in terms of aspects that requireagreement or participation of literally all countries – can only operate at this level.However, many – and, maybe, most – implementation aspects require nuancing byregion, by type of forests, by size of economy, etc. Such discussions may benefit from therealization that the discussion as well as the logic of the discussion needs to move to alocale closer to what is being discussed. Similarly, a global commitment to a shift fromthe traditional approach to forest governance to a new, portfolio approach needs thebroad support and authority that the apex can bring, but the actual details of the


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portfolio elements will need to be negotiated in a multitude of fora, some of which willbe regional, some sectoral (e.g., financing, timber companies, indigenous peoples, etc.)and some focused on related issues (e.g., UNFCCC, IFIs, illegal taking and trade, etc.).

We suggest that further research is needed to identify an analytical framework thatguides which issues should be discussed where. This requires, amongst others, designingand testing processes where different levels are able to interact. Such research couldlead to important insights in how to give more meaningful voice and participation tomore stakeholders and also make the diplomacy more effective. An important aspect ofsuch a research agenda to identify and attribute the appropriate scale for a new modelof global forest diplomacy is how to empower other venues and forums outside the UNsystem. As with the other hypotheses, research should gravitate towards examiningoverarching principles of determining which issues could best be addressed at whichlevels, locations and logics that are best suited to the issue itself. Following our model,we see the need for the development of a new global forest diplomacy that operates atmultiple scales, with appropriate issues dealt with at the appropriate scales and withclear and functional processes for different scales to not only inform but also tonegotiate with each other.

Hypothesis 2. Issues and Arenas: The development of institutional space forinstitutional interaction increases the probability of success of the evolvingsystem of global forest governance.Throughout this study we have demonstrated the notion that the ‘system’ of globalforest diplomacy has been evolving with time. We have attempted to describe thedimensions of this evolution and argued that our inability to manage the emergingchallenges of sustainable forest management is related to our inability to fullyunderstand and keep up with this evolution and complexity. As a consequence, thetendency of decision-makers is to eliminate this complexity by defining narrowboundaries around these issues, such as forest carbon. This fragmentation amongpolicies clearly affects the effectiveness in a negative way and is standing in the way ofachieving the agreed goals, objectives and targets, as we have shown in the previouschapters. Based on our analysis, and following other scholarly work, we claim that thesystem of global forest governance has evolved into something far more complex thanit was even until recently (Najam, Papa and Taiyab, 2006). Based on our findings we alsobelieve that the evolution continues and is likely to continue.

For example, the system of global forest diplomacy is dramatically different from whatit was until as recently as the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, where a global forest conventionwas discussed but only a non-binding declaration was achieved. It is different not simplybecause more countries are involved in the discussion today or because ourunderstanding of forest challenges is more profound. The system of global forestdiplomacy is substantially different today because the arenas where forests arediscussed have also evolved. The shape of forest diplomacy today is determined not onlyby how the forests issue has evolved but also how interconnected issues – for example,climate change, biodiversity and trade – have and continue to evolve. These adjacentdevelopments not only constrain how we can respond to the need of forests diplomacy,

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they also open new opportunities.

In chapter 2, we traced the evolution of the system since the 1992 Earth Summit globalforest diplomacy. We stressed that the system has evolved in a significant way with theestablishment of UNFF, an international forum dedicated to forest discussions and amandate to bring multiple actors together. This makes any discussion on global forestgovernance substantively and qualitatively different from deliberations that took placebefore the UNFF was created. The institutional pulls, the political demands of turf andinfluence, the negotiation space, the discourse memory, are all different because thereis now such an arena.

Based on our analysis we do not claim that this is the only – or even the mostfundamental – difference today. The evolution of the global forest diplomacy systembetween 1992 and now is far deeper than just the creation of the UNFF. Indeed, it couldbe argued that in terms of substance far more important developments in this systemevolution have happened in arenas that are not primarily focused on forests. Forexample, the evolution of the global climate change debate and its focus on forests ascarbon sinks has created new spaces for forest diplomacy that are not entirely withintraditional forests arenas. Indeed, given the growing focus and importance of climatechange has also led to an increasing focus on forests within climate discussions and alsoon climate within forests discussions (IWG, 2009). From a policy aspect this has onceagain generated global interest in the forest issue, on the other hand there is a risk thata whole host of other (non-climate-related) forest concerns may be ignored ordisregarded as climate change and carbon sequestration become the most importantdrivers of forest policy (TDF, 2008). Importantly, this, we argue, is much more likely tohappen – or not happen – in climate change arenas and institutions than in forestarenas and institutions.

Also the growing attention to increasing the development of agriculture in order to fightpoverty has a direct link to global forest governance. Only as we are capable ofintensifying agriculture on current agricultural land we can overcome furtherdeforestation. So the system of global forest governance as well its diplomacy has togive due respect to these inter-linkages.

Another important example of the system evolvement is that of illegal trade in forestproducts, particularly timber. This is clearly a critical challenge for the globalgovernance of forest resources. However, trade decisions are made at the World TradeOrganization (WTO), which also has both the mandate and ability to enforce itsdecisions. Yet at the present time WTO largely ignores the issue of trade in timber thatis harvested in violation of international norms or even national laws, and could evenoppose actions taken to address this problem if they violated trade rules (Brack, 2003;Trachtman, 2009).

While the above are primarily state-based examples, the development and growth ofindependent labeling mechanisms demonstrates that the system has begun to co-evolveto incorporate and create a space for non-state actors too. For example, the FSC hasdemonstrated the utility of labeling that has itself changed the debate on the subject andmade many of the arguments being made in 1992 redundant. Similarly, with our study


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we find that REDD as a concept has demonstrate how closely linked issues – such asclimate change and indigenous peoples’ rights – could possibly be linked in policy, justas the Growing Forests Partnership is beginning to demonstrate the possibilities andchallenges of multi-institutional partnerships and linking global and local agendas. Inessence, our study learned that the system has evolved in multiple dimensions and wellbeyond ‘traditional’ or ‘focused’ forests institutions. There is also a recognition of thisevolution and some attempts to incorporate multiple actors for example in Congo BasinForest Partnership, the Asia Forest Partnership, and the Model Forest Network in LatinAmerica and the Caribbean.

Our study also highlighted that the proliferation of arenas where forest governance isbeing discussed, which is also part of this non-linear evolution, could itself lead tosignificant management problems. While multiple arenas do provide the ability to dealwith different levels of the complexity at different forums, they also require a systemof inter-arena coordination. The need for such coordination in global forests governanceis now becoming glaringly, and urgently, evident. This need is further underscored bytwo related realities. First, that more and more non-forest actors will impact forestsdecisions (TFD, 2008). Secondly, that more and more forests decisions will be made innon-forests forums (Hoogeveen et.al., 2008). It says also something about thenegotiators who should be capable of acting in these multiple arenas. They should havea broader understanding and knowledge about issues involved as well as the sills to actin a more integrated way. Creating the space for such institutional interactions anddeveloping a more integrated diplomacy are key challenges in creating a new diplomacyfor global forest governance.

It is important to note that our hypothesis does not imply to create management super-structures within which all the myriad initiatives are subsumed. Our research showsthat a new diplomacy for global forest governance would require a more flexibleinstitutional space where different institutions can network with each other withouttrigger ‘turf’ sensitivities of the key actors. Our study highlighted that some of thisinstitutional networking is beginning to take shape as relevant actors start interactingwith the forums of other relevant actors. More than this, however, is the need for anetwork arrangement whose primary role is facilitating inter-institutional coordination.Further research, we claim, is needed on the particular modalities of such anarrangement.

As a common theme we have reiterated that because forests have multiple issuedimensions, there are multiple arenas where different issue aspects are discussed anddealt with. This means that institutions and arenas dealing with agriculture,international trade, climate change, poverty and development, and biodiversity all havelegitimate reasons to be making forest decisions and, conversely, forest institutions havelegitimate reasons to be discussing all these varied issues. This, as we demonstrated inour work, obviously makes forest decision-making that much more complex. But it alsooffers the possibility of different arenas being able to manage different issues aspects.Our findings indicate that any effort to ‘manage’ all these myriad issues within a singleinstitutional framework will lead to a system that diminishes the probability of success

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in terms of developing an effective system of global forest governance. An alternativemodel would focus on a governance system that can create enough coherence,interaction, and coordination between the various arenas that they all act towards acommon goal – i.e., sustainable forest management or, more broadly, sustainabledevelopment – rather than at cross purposes. The need, therefore, is not for a ‘super-arena’ but, instead, for better coherence. This assumes, indeed it necessitates, aninstitutional actor whose role is to facilitate such coherence.

Based on our analysis we argue that the most effective institutional body to providethis system synergy would be the UNFF. The Forum is already the de facto conveningplace of all policy discussions related to the world’s forests. The UNFF can be the spacewhere the system seeks to develop a common guidance on which direction the systemmoves and how different parts of the forests governance system interact. This wouldmean, however, that UNFF moves from trying to act like a negotiation forum to becomea management forum. Our proposition is to make this convening function the UNFF’sprimary responsibility and providing it with the tools and incentives through which tosucceed in this task. The metrics of success of UNFF, we claim, would not be measuredby what ‘agreements’ it reaches, but instead by the space it can provide to all relevantforests policy actors to interact and synergize their activities. Such a role envisages theUNFF as the central hub in coordinating the ‘portfolio’ of forest policy initiatives bymultiple actors. It becomes the space within lessons across various initiatives areshared, ideas are jointly developed, institutional linkages are fostered, and a tabulationis kept of which initiatives within the portfolio are doing better or worse and, as a result,how the portfolio as a whole is performing; i.e., whether the state of global forestgovernance and our world’s forests themselves is improving.

It seems to us as important to do more thorough research on how to developinstitutional space more consciously, instead of accidently, that allows for a moreadaptive and explorative strategy to manage complex governance challenges in whichinterconnected issues, networks of actors and multiple instruments play a moredominant role.

Hypothesis 3. Actors: The probability of success of the system of global forestgovernance increases when deeper participation of all relevant stakeholdersis ensured.In previous chapters we have demonstrate the variety of actors involved in global forestgovernance, but also highlighted the complications that arise because of the variety andhow those implications impact the efficacy of global forest governance. From our casestudy we learned there is no fixed content, nor is there a fixed set of actors operatingwithin the system of global forest governance. There is nearly full consensus amongstscholars as well as practitioners of global governance on the need to incorporate abroader array of actors and their wider range of interests for more effective globalgovernance (Young, 1994). Much scholarly work demonstrates that governance capacityis generated through the coordination of the activities of these actors (Child andFaulkner, 1998). Discussions couched in the language of ‘multi-stakeholderinvolvement’, ‘broad participation,’ ‘public-private partnerships,’ etc., all emanate from


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the realization that meaningful global action requires more than the participation ofstates. States are no less important today than they were in the past, but they are nolonger the only actor group that influence global challenges (Najam et.al., 2004)

In support of a polycentric approach, chapter 4 presented a detailed picture of thecomplex landscape of global forest actors, from state, market, and civil society actors.As we analyzed there, the system of global forest governance, particularly regardingmultilateral negotiations, however, remains state-centric even as global realities are nolonger so. While there are some exceptions – for example, the active involvement ofNGOs such as IUCN, WWF and TRAFFIC in biodiversity-related MEAs – these stillremain exceptions rather than the rule. Our analysis learned that the forces of inertiawithin a state-centric system are difficult to change for both state-actors and non-stateactors.

As we have learned in many international negotiation settings – from climate changeto trade – the most common role for non-state actors is to provide ‘observer’ status tosome non-state actors, maybe an opportunity to speak within a plenary session, andmost often the ability to lobby state delegates in the corridors. In essence, themultilateral system is willing to allow new actors in, but only at its own terms and ismuch less ready to change itself to facilitate their effective participation.

For a global forest governance system to become more effective we assert that we neednew and innovative ways of thinking about what ‘participation’ in global forestgovernance really means for different actors. Based on our findings a new diplomacy forimproved global forest governance must begin to rearrange the notion of ‘stakeholderparticipation’ itself. For example, the process for certifying forests products throughindependent third parties such as the FSC, as a response to facilitate complex decision-making, involves meaningful exchange between actors at very different parts of thesupply chain. For the system to work, local timber producers in tropical forests must beable to communicate effectively with their counterparts in consumer countries, both ofwhom must react to ever changing market and environmental dynamics. As a result,independent certification programs can only be successful if they integrate the concernsand wisdom of those working on both ends of the forests products spectrum. As Chapter4 has detailed at some length, there are a multitude of actors with very differentinterests in the forest issue: from forests users seeking ways to sustain their livelihoods,to business representatives seeking market opportunities, to states implementing theirsovereign prerogative to the management of their resources. All these interests are validand important for the actors concerned. There are strong practical and conceptual –even moral – reasons to want to involve all of them in the governance of the world’sforests. But there is no reason - practical, conceptual, or moral - to assume that thismeans having to bring them all together in every global forum to ensure an effectivesystem of global forest governance.

The example of indigenous peoples and local communities is illustrative in that regard.Their survival concerns and interests are not just important but central to sustainableforest management (Kaimowitz, 2008). Yet there is concern that forest approaches, suchas REDD, may be setting processes in place to maximize a benefit such as carbon

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sequestration at the expense of the needs of the populations living in the forests. It isalso clear that these concerns need to be central to discussions at global institutionsand in global negotiations. What is not clear, however, is whether and how theseconcerns can be best represented and accommodated in global decision-making. Animportant research question for further work is how and at what point it is most usefulto include these voices: at the global negotiation table, in bilateral or smaller-groupconversations, at the national policy level or locally on the ground.

Based on our findings of the current practice, it seems that the level at which they havethe least capacity to provide insight and influence – at the global level - is where theyare mostly incorporated, but the level at which they can provide the most insight andinfluence – the local level - is where they are mostly ignored.

A critical determinant for success, we believe, is to invest in a new diplomacy for globalforest governance that allows multiple opportunities for multiple actors. This dovetailsdirectly to the need for a portfolio approach as we articulate in the hypothesis below.Building on what we learned from other fora – such as the involvement of private sectoractors in negotiations to regulate CFC production and the Montreal Protocol, theincorporation of civil society actors in the Desertification Convention, the experience ofNGOs with tracking illegal trade in endangered species, the important role played bycelebrities in raising global awareness on human rights issues, or the contribution ofscientists in clarifying the state of science in climate change policy – the notion is toprovide different actors the ability to be involved at the levels where they have the mostcompetence and capacity to influence global forest governance.

Our proposition is not to exclude some actors from global diplomacy. At the same time,our analysis shows that we should depart from the widely shared notion that “allrelevant stakeholders” should be involved. Rather, it is to expand our understanding ofwhat participation in global governance means to include all the levels at which theimplementation of global forest governance practically happens. Our approach is toexpand not only the number of actors that are involved in global forest governance butalso to expand the range of opportunities in which they can be meaningfully involved.At the same time, it is critically important to be selective in determining which actorsshould be involved. Those actors who have a critical role and the governance capacityin the implementation of the global outcomes should have seat at the table. For aneffective system of global forest governance, our case study finds, as one illustration,that it is less relevant to debate who speaks for forest dwellers globally, than to hearwhat forest dwellers are saying about their own forests. We propose that futurescholarly work needs to be conducted to develop an analytical framework to ensure thatall relevant voices are not only given a chance to “say” what they think, but that whatthey are saying is actually “heard” by those who can most react most relevantly to whatthey are saying.

The interconnected nature of today’s challenges resulted in suggestions for acoordinated response by a more coherent governance system. Coherence requiresreasonable coordination and regular communication among organizations. However, itdoes not require a super-organization, nor does it require a central control mechanism


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to coordinate every action of every organization in the international system. Betterpolicy coherence requires horizontal integration of global forest governance. First, ouranalysis indicates that there should be a commitment to deal with new issues in themost appropriate existing forums, rather than creating new instruments andinstitutions. Second, the current practice shows that each of the involved institutionshas its own forest pogram. This leads to a proliferations of forest programs which arepartly overlapping and all have a lacks of means of implementation. Drivers for theprograms are to a certain extent the secretariats of the institutions in order to giveprofile to its institution. Often it leads to competition and turf wars within the UNsystem. This clearly shows the need for clustering or merging of secretariats of MEAsand departments of UN organizations and the forest arena should be encouraged tofollow suit.

Hypothesis 4. Policy instrumentation: The fixation with one comprehensiveagreement distracts attention from other avenues of the diplomacy of globalforest governance that have a better potential for resolution and forimplementation.The multiplicity of issues and actors related to forests has led to a myriad governancemechanisms and diverse approaches to the implementation and enforcement ofsustainable forest management. In previous chapters we analyzed the complex sets ofinstruments and approaches within the system of global forest governance and haveshown that this interactions bring the achievement of our agreed goals, objectives andtargets not nearer. It clearly impacts the effectiveness of the systems and its efficiency.More than ever the question arises around the effective scale of the governanceresponse, including the role and impact of the subsidiarity principle.

Among decision-makers there is an ongoing tendency towards creating stability andorder in governance systems. Based on our research it is not a surprise that for nearlytwo decades now the international discourse on global forest management has beenfixated on the desire to negotiate an all-encompassing forests agreement of some sort.The fixation on a single solution – be it a framework convention or a global forest fund– has concentrated the attention on the process of negotiation, even when manycommentators and practitioners alike have stated that it is unlikely that a meaningfulsingle instrument can be negotiated (Humphreys, 2006). In the process, other globalgovernance options for forests have either been ignored, or have received less attentionthan they deserved.

As we learned, global governance is a highly interlinked and complex system that is thesum of organizations, policy instruments, financing mechanisms, rules, procedures, andnorms that regulate the processes of forest specifically, within the broader context ofsustainable development, operating at multiple levels: global, national, and local. Theconfusion between ‘negotiation’ and ‘governance’ is not unique to the forests issue.Many issues related to sustainable development, including climate change andbiodiversity, have been plagued by a similar confusion. But this confusion has beenparticularly pertinent in the forests context because the negotiation process hasconsumed so much time and effort and yet yielded so little.

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The late 1980s and early 1990s marked the era of global negotiations. The emergenceof new challenges, the end of the cold war, the headiness of globalization, and anewfound technical ability to scale-up the number, size and frequency of globalgatherings triggered a certain infatuation with global negotiations. Existing negotiationprocesses heated up (for example, on trade) and a whole host of new negotiationprocesses were launched (for example, on environmental issues) at ever more ambitiousscales in terms of participation, scope and aspiration. Nowhere was the sense ofpossibility of global negotiations on display with as much enthusiasm as at the 1992Rio Earth Summit, including in its initial attempt to negotiate a Global ForestConvention.

At that point, this singular focus on the negotiation process was not just necessary, butdesirable. Many of the issues were new, or new complexities had been added because offast-changing global realities. Getting countries together to set common goals and seekcommon solutions made full sense to the parties involved (Susskind, 1994). However, inthis process, a negotiation system took hold where negotiation itself seems to havebecome the goal (Najam, Papa, Taiyab, 2006; Munoz et.al., 2009). The system, as aresult, has often lost sight of the fact that an agreement itself is not the measure of‘success’ – and, certainly, the sheer act of negotiation is not. Negotiation success canparticularly be measured by the successful implementation of that which is negotiatedand, ultimately, the impact that implementation has on the problem that first broughtthe negotiators together (Young, 1994). The pervading sense of ‘negotiation fatigue’(Munoz, Thrasher, Najam, 2009), analyzed in Chapter 2, that so many commentatorslament is itself a direct result of growing aggravation about the years of unendingnegotiations that do not lead to any concrete implementation, and in the case of forestsnot even a functional agreement.

In the case of forests, the negotiation fatigue has become particularly intense and theassumption that every meeting must negotiate some ‘common text’ is overwhelming,even when the text has neither legal validity nor demonstrated implementation utility.The mechanics of negotiation seem to have become rather ritualistic (Humphreys,2006). Very different actors – foresters, diplomats, environmentalists, indigenouspeoples – tend to come in with very different expectations, speak very different policylanguages, and leave with a common sense of dissatisfaction. But most importantly,whatever is negotiated tends to have minimal impact on the actual state of the world’sforests.

Much of this results from the fact that the search for one universal, comprehensiveconvention have never really been given up. Based on our study there are at least threerelated reasons why, in the context of global forest governance, we think that a single,universal “Global Forest Convention,” per se, is not a critical determinant for successin terms of providing an effective system for global forest governance.

! First, from a practical perspective, it is clear – and has been for quite some time – thatthe political will and motivation for such a convention simply does not exist.

! Second, from a strategic perspective, the recurring rituals of discussing ideas aboutgrand solutions like a comprehensive forest convention are not just an nuisance but an


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actual drag on the time and resources of those involved in global negotiations. The fix-ation with a single agreement distracts attention from other avenues of global forestmanagement that have a better potential for resolution and for implementation.

! Finally, from a conceptual perspective, it is no longer clear that a global forest conven-tion (or a single fund) would be an effective tool, even if it were politically possible to at-tain agreement. The complexity of the issue and the myriad linkages to other challengingissues – for example, trade, climate, settlements, etc. – militate against a single treatysolution and calls for a more nuanced set of cross-linkages with other issues and theconventions and treaties that govern them.

In essence, working towards an all-encompassing Global Forest Convention could leadto suboptimal outcomes in three ways – (a) it is an institutional bargaining process thatis unlikely to conclude; (b) keeping engaged in such a bargaining process distracts theinternational community from other, more feasible, achievements, and (c) theinternational community may find itself saddled with even bigger problems if such aconvention were indeed to be concluded and adopted.

Based on the evidence in our study we have no reason to denounce the act of forestnegotiations per se. Many scholars have pointed to the realization that particularlyintegrative bargaining have a potential to resolve issues at the multilateral level (Young,1994).The lesson, however, is that we now know much more about forest issues andalso about the process of negotiation. Our analysis shows that the internationalcommunity need to build a response to the complexity of the issue that embraces thatcomplexity and utilizes it to solve multiple problems. In forest issues, as on many othercomplex sustainable development issues, soft law has tended to produce hard results(Hoogeveen et.al., 2008). We claim that the fixation with searching for hard lawsolutions needs to be nuanced with a recognition that an array of soft law instrumentsmight be more effective to a single comprehensive hard law instrument. Forests, as ouranalysis have demonstrated, are not about a single issue, they involve multiple issuesfor multiple actors at multiple political levels and geographical locations. They require,therefore, not a single response, but a series of connected responses – i.e., a portfolio ofresponses.

Hypothesis 5. Policy instrumentation: Portfolio Approach – The probability ofsuccess of the system of global forest governance rises when a portfolioapproach is adopted.Our study began with the premise that the purpose of global efforts is not simply to getan ‘agreement,’ but to stimulate actual improvements in the state of forests, to sustainthe services they provide, and to enhance the quality of lives of those who depend onthem. From nearly 20 years of accumulated experience in trying to negotiate a ‘treaty,’we now know that an overarching agreement that does all of the above is unlikely, butwe also know that there are many specific initiatives and steps that can be taken tomove us towards these goals (Hoogeveen et.al. 2008). Based on our analysis, the systemof global forest governance will be more effective when it develops mechanisms thatnurture, support, connect and coordinate global efforts. The challenge is not one ofnegotiating a new grand instrument, but of coordinating multiple existing and new

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initiatives. Such an approach will need to include innovative and sometimes untriedmechanisms. As Chapter 5 illustrates, there are multiple tools and approaches – mostlysoft law instruments – available for global forest governance, which will require newmodes of operating with multiple stakeholders. It will also require adaptive governancein order to be flexible to adjust to our ever changing world, including new actors,contexts, and challenges (Boons et.al., 2008). To be effective, it must be performancebased, requiring rigorous and constant assessment, and strong mechanisms ofcoordination and coherence between multiple instruments and institutions.

Based on our earlier research, such a ‘Portfolio Approach’ could consist of utilizing acombination of initiatives that can raise a variety of resources – including, monetaryresources, knowledge resources, capacity development, public support, and awareness–for effective global action on forests (Hoogeveen et.al., 2008). Simply stated, the notionof a Portfolio Approach is that instead of selecting a single (or small) set of instruments,a portfolio of complimentary instruments be nurtured for raising the required supportmechanisms (Hoogeveen et.al, 2008).

Indeed, in our study we have demonstrated that such a portfolio has, de facto, begun toemerge. Between, independent third party forest certification, a REDD initiative withinglobal climate negotiations, the convening power of UNFF, collaborative partnershipssuch as the Congo Basin Forest Partnership, national forest reserves, sustainableworking forests and the Global Biosphere protected areas, Costa Rica’s payment forecosystem services program, FLEG, and others the reality of global forest policy isalready beginning to be defined by a portfolio approach. However, in the absence of aformal recognition of this reality and of a governance system that seeks to ‘balance’and coordinate this portfolio of initiatives, there is the risk of redundancy, friction, andincoherence contributing to an ineffective system of global forest governance.

An important element of a future research and policy agenda in the field of global forestgovernance would be to carefully study, organize and coordinate the management ofthe myriad initiatives and instruments that have sprung up, and the sum of whichconstitute global policy on forests. These may include forest specific initiatives andinstruments, such as forest products certification, national policies or MEAs, or thesemay also include initiatives and instruments in other ‘linked’ sectors, such as carbontrading or WTO trade agreements. Once a full inventory is compiled and an analysis ofpossible interlinkages has been conducted, the policy challenge is to begin organizingthe list for coherence and developing formal linkages between them for effectiveness.With participation from diverse forests actors, like those described in Chapter 4, sucha policy response would lead to the identification of areas of duplication, areas of policyneglect, areas in need of additional initiative, and areas in need of bolstering.

From a diplomacy perspective, such a portfolio approach has the potential to unlockone of the most difficult problems in multilateral negotiations leading to suboptimaloutcomes. The negotiation process can become difficult when single (or small sets of)issues have to be negotiated by a large number of actors, many of whom have onlylimited interest in that particular issue (Susskind, 1994). Often the result is ‘deadlock’because each issue negotiation gets bogged down by the inability of actors to ‘trade


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across issues’ and the absence of a framework that allows for concessions on differentissues to be traded. A well-conceived portfolio negotiation would make explicit the factthat concessions on different aspects of the portfolio can be traded. The portfolio ofoptions provides regionally and developmentally appropriate means for different nationsand regions to meet overarching agreed upon goals. It could also seek more efficiencyin the negotiation since not all actors will need to participate equally in every aspect ofthe portfolio. Differing regional approaches can also be better accommodated withinsuch an approach. This, however, can only happen if all actors are convinced that theirpriority issues are, in fact, being dealt with in some other part of the portfolio and anassurance that the overall portfolio will remain ‘balanced’.

By way of an example of what the portfolio approach might look like, we previouslyconducted research based on which we prepared a detailed proposal for global forestfinancing (Hoogeveen et.al., 2008). We concluded that the major problem was obtainingfinancial resources at sufficient scale, and that a major barrier to obtaining anagreement for a forest instrument was over a lack of willingness of donors to makefunds available and an inability to agree on control and decision making for the fund.As an alternative, the Forest Financing Mechanism (FFM) we developed envisaged inthe proposal consisted of four major financial product and service ‘types’ including:public funding; payment for ecosystem services; engaging the private sector; andmobilizing philanthropic leaders. The idea was based on the premise that individually,neither the public sector, the private sector, nor civil society can mobilize sufficientresources for effective global forests management. However, a combination of productsand services from the four elements of the portfolio – public funding, payment forecosystem services, engaging the private sector, and mobilizing philanthropic leaders –could possibly provide a win-win, mutual gains solution to sustainable global forestfinancing (Hoogeveen et.al, 2008). This is not simply a matter to collating the potentialof different actors. To be successful, such a portfolio approach requires the ability toidentify, and facilitate, the appropriate mix of instruments and to provide a governanceframework within which each instrument can achieve its potential. The challenge forforest diplomacy is to create global negotiating platforms where such a governancesystem can first be devised and then operationalized (Jenkins et.al., 2007).

As already indicated, based on our research a new model for the diplomacy for globalforest governance moves from trying to negotiate grand agreements to negotiating –and then managing – a portfolio of instruments within an ecosystem of institutions andactors. Not all of the institutions and instruments in this architecture would be state-centered. In our study we have demonstrated that market instruments and civil societyinstitutions are as central to the good governance of our world’s forests as stateinstitutions. Indeed, such market and civil society instruments – including independentthird party certification, possibly REDD – are already important components of theemergent forest governance ‘portfolio.’ But they are so, we learned, by happenstance,rather than by design. Following our model, a new global diplomacy for forestgovernance, would make the portfolio approach explicit. More than that, the goal ofthis diplomacy would move from the negotiation of a treaty or agreement, to thecreation and management of portfolios of instruments and the provision of the

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convening space in which they can operate and be nurtured coherently. Theinseparability of the social and environmental dimension from the economic onesrequires a comprehensive approach. The relationship of forests to water, climate,livelihoods, trade, biodiversity, timber and non-timber resources and to land use mustbe understood and the interconnections among these subsystems utilized in devisingstrategies that may affect them all. The traditional structure of treaties treats each ofthese subsystem issue areas singly so that attempts to optimize for each issue subsystemleads to sub-optimization of the total system. Hence, we fail to address forests effectivelybecause we do not include the full range of economic, human and environmentaldimensions. Sustainable Development Diplomacy will be more effective once itrecognizes this fundamental fact.

Hypothesis 6. Leadership: A system of global forest governance cannot succeedin the absence of effective entrepreneurial leadership on the part ofindividuals.Our final hypothesis centers around the notion of personal leadership and its impact onthe system of global forest governance. Although the actors discussed in chapter 4primarily revolved around broad categories: governments, international organizations,civil society and the private sector, we also assume a critical role on the part ofindividuals in promoting a more effective system of global forest governance. This isnot to claim that these overarching categories are irrelevant.

Based on the evidence from our analysis we claim that a critical factor to develop aneffective system of global forest governance is the emergence of one or more individualsas effective leaders in the process and, conversely, that in the absence of such leadership,they will fail. Especially in the twenty-first century leadership is needed that recognizesthe complexity of interconnected issues. He, or she, is expected to be an honest broker,a respected leader who can propose new ideas and bold action for the rapidly changinginternational governance system and at the same time work – sometimes publicly,sometimes behind the scenes – towards finding solutions to unprecedented problemsand challenges that human mankind will face in the coming years and decades. In ourexperience we do not just refer to political leadership, but also to those who in the dailynegotiations within the UN system can and are willing to show leadership. Thecomplexity of the system not only asks for change in how we operate, but also a changein skills to make the system more effective.

This is not unique for the forest case study per se. Much scholarly work has underscoredthe importance of effective leadership in global public goods arrangements (Frohlich,1971). A particularly striking, and widely cited, case is the remarkable achievement ofMostafa Tolba, UNEP’s executive director, in shepherding the negotiations regardingthe protection of stratospheric ozone to a successful conclusion. Leaders in institutionalbargaining are neither representatives of hegemons who can impose their will on othersnor ethically motivated actors who seek to fashion workable institutional arrangementsas contributions to the common good or the supply of public goods in internationalsociety (Young, 1994). Our analysis shows that a critical success factor in changingbehavioral impact is the leadership and vision that is required to build and implement


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a new diplomacy. It requires boldness to experiment with new ideas, such as thoseillustrated in previous chapters revolving around the introduction of the portfolioapproach in the context of UNFF.

Another critical component for leadership to facilitate effective decision-making withincomplex governance system is the level of trust vested by other actors, such asgovernments and major groups. If horizontal relations in governance systems areincreasing in importance, trust becomes an important coordination mechanism sinceuncertainties can no longer be managed through hierarchical power (Edelenbos andEshuis, 2008: 195). An important condition for any decision-maker, such as aChairperson in multilateral negotiations, to become effective is to gain a sufficient levelof trust necessary for the generation of a system’s governance capacity which iscompetence based. This competence based trust involves trusting the ability of an actorto make things work thereby reducing the perceived chance of opportunistic behaviorby other actors (Das and Teng, 2001).

Effective leadership also requires a truly global and inclusive mindset to turn aroundthe notions of traditional diplomacy on its head building upon the recognition that thecomplexity of our evolving and polycentric governance systems is here to stay. In this,the leadership required has to be bold and innovative enough because the long-termchallenges of sustainable development are big enough.

As we conclude our thesis, it is clear that the traditional tools of diplomacy that we haveapplied and the system of governance we have tried to construct around the forest issuehas not worked. It is not that the actors who have tried to solve the problem have notworked hard enough, nor that they have not come up with good ideas. It is, instead,that traditional tools of diplomacy that they have been applying ever so diligently areno longer the appropriate tools.

In our study we have tried to outline the overarching propositions of what we believeare the essential determinants of success of a new diplomacy for the global governanceof forests. We envisage a diplomacy that is build around the premise that the complexityof the solutions has to match the complexity of the problem and that the inherentcomplexity of the forests problem has to be recognized an incorporated into anygovernance mechanism that is established.

During our study we have learned that there are many signs that a de facto newdiplomacy is already beginning to emerge. Complex connections are beginning to bemade. Innovations around actors and participation are being experimented with. Non-traditional instruments are emerging and the seeds of a portfolio approach have alreadybeen sowed. However, we recognize that all major systems are inherently resistant tochange while forces of inertia seek to keep systems moving along familiar paths. As wehave learned, the established system seeks to resist and reject attempts at change. Ourresearch indicated the profound challenges of the current system of global forestdiplomacy system while at the same time highlighted many experiments and effortsthat are, in fact, moving in the right direction in terms of increasing the probability ofsuccessful implementation.

To the extent that the arguments sets forth in this study are convincing it should be

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apparent that we need to devote much more attention in the future to exploring thenature of sustainable development diplomacy. Although efforts have gone into theeffectiveness of subcomponents of the system of global governance, or more preciselyglobal forest governance, our understanding of the determinants of success of theeffectiveness of the system as a whole is rudimentary at this stage. Nonetheless, theeffort to improve knowledge of this complex subject is essential for those responsible fordesigning governance systems to cope with sustainable development challenges.

We hope that our study of this particular case study provided a useful first step as aplatform for future scholarly work on the effectiveness of sustainable developmentdiplomacy.


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Annex 1.Forest Timeline

1945 – First meeting of the Food and Agriculture (FAO) Conference.

1948 –International Union for Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) is founded as theworld’s first international organization devoted to natural resource conservationengaging government and non-governmental organizations.

1972 - United Nations Conference on Human Environment held in Stockholm under theleadership of Maurice Strong. The conference was primarily rooted in the regionalpollution and acid rain problems of northern Europe. The conference leads to theestablishment of numerous national environmental protection agencies and the UnitedNations Environment Programme (UNEP).

1972 – First meeting of the Committee on Forestry (COFO).

1973 - Chipko Movement born in India in response to deforestation and environmentaldegradation. The actions of the women of the community influenced both forestry andwomen's participation in environmental issues.

1975 - Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna(CITES) comes into effect.

1977 - Greenbelt Movement is started in Kenya by Wangari Maathai. It is based oncommunity tree-planting to prevent desertification.

1977 - UN Conference on Desertification is held.

1980 - World Conservation Strategy released by IUCN. The strategy definesdevelopment as "the modification of the biosphere and the application of human,financial, living and non-living resources to satisfy human needs and improve thequality of human life".

1982 - International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) was established

1983 – International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA) was adopted.

1986 – International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) was established. It adoptedthe Year 2000 Objective to manage tropical forests sustainably and begin work onguidelines for as a reference standard for sustainable management of natural forests.

1987 - "Our Common Future" (Brundtland Report) published. It focuses on challengesassociated with environment and development. It also popularizes the term "sustainabledevelopment".

1988 – Chico Mendez, Brazilian labor and environmental leader representing 70,000rubber tappers, is murdered. He had advocated for sustainable use of Brazil’s forests(rather than deforestation for timber and grazing), and his death brought worldwideattention to the plight of tropical forests.

1988 - Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change established with three workinggroups to assess the most up-to-date scientific, technical and socio-economic researchin the field of climate change.

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1992 - U.N. Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio deJaneiro. Intergovernmental negotiations and agreements result in the publication ofAgenda 21, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Framework Convention onClimate Change, the Rio Declaration, and the first statement on world’s forest policywith the Forest Principles.

1993 - Commission on Sustainable Development

Established at the UN in New York included forests in its multi-year program of work

1993 - Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) hosts in Montreal,Canada International Seminar of Experts on Sustainable Development of Boreal andTemperate Forests. This launched the broad international dialogue on scientificallybased criteria and indicators to assess progress towards sustainable development oftemperate and boreal forests. The Pan-European and the Montreal Criteria andIndicators Processes have their origins in this meeting.

Apendix 1.1993 – Montreal Process - Launched an ongoing ad hoc dialogue among tentemperate and boreal forest nations (including the United States) to further thecommon understanding of sustainable forestry as well as seek consensus and develop ameans to report on national progress toward that goal.

1995 - Santiago Declaration was endorsed by ten nations (later 12 nations) as acommitment to use a comprehensive set of seven criteria and 67 related indicators toreport on national progress toward forest conservation and sustainable management oftemperate and boreal forests (results of Montreal Process).

1995 – UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) was established. By 1997, itadopts 149 Proposals for Action to help countries implement sustainable forestmanagement.

1997 - Foreign Ministers of G8 Countries, eight of the world's largest industrializednations, decide to implement sustainable forest management.

1997 - UN's Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF) was created. It producedadditional Proposals for Action, in addition to the IPF Proposals, on topics such as tradeand environment, traditional forest related knowledge, financing mechanisms, andresearch and debated the pros and cons of an international forest convention.

2000 - UN Forum on Forests (UNFF) - Established as a permanent arrangement tofacilitate the implementation of the IPF/IFF Proposals for Action, provide forum forpolicy dialogue, enhance coordination of work of international organizations, fosterinternational cooperation, monitor and assess progress, and enhance politicalcommitment to sustainable forest management.

2003 - International Conference on Criteria and Indicators (CICI) - Conference ofexperts from 55 nations reviewed and reaffirmed political commitment to use of Criteriaand Indicators to promote Sustainable Forest Management.

2007 – Adoption of Non-Legally Binding Instrument on All Types of Forests

2007 – Adoption of Bali Action Plan UNFCCC with reference to REDD, SFM andenhancement of carbon sinks

Annex 2.Non-Legally Binding Authoritative Statement of Principles for a

Global Consensus on the Management, Conservation and SustainableDevelopment of all Types of Forests

PREAMBLE

(a) The subject of forests is related to the entire range of environmental anddevelopment issues and opportunities, including the right to socio-economicdevelopment on a sustainable basis.

(b) The guiding objective of these principles is to contribute to the management,conservation and sustainable development of forests and to provide for their multipleand complementary functions and uses.

(c) Forestry issues and opportunities should be examined in a holistic and balancedmanner within the overall context of environment and development, taking intoconsideration the multiple functions and uses of forests, including traditional uses, andthe likely economic and social stress when these uses are constrained or restricted, aswell as the potential for development that sustainable forest management can offer.

(d) These principles reflect a first global consensus on forests. In committingthemselves to the prompt implementation of these principles, countries also decide tokeep them under assessment for their adequacy with regard to further internationalcooperation on forest issues.

(e) These principles should apply to all types of forests, both natural and planted, inall geographical regions and climatic zones, including austral, boreal, sub temperate,temperate, subtropical and tropical.

(f) All types of forests embody complex and unique ecological processes which arethe basis for their present and potential capacity to provide resources to satisfy humanneeds as well as environmental values, and as such their sound management andconservation is of concern to the Governments of the countries to which they belong andare of value to local communities and to the environment as a whole.

(g) Forests are essential to economic development and the maintenance of all formsof life.

(h) Recognizing that the responsibility for forest management, conservation andsustainable development is in many States allocated among federal/national,state/provincial and local levels of government, each State, in accordance with itsconstitution and/or national legislation, should pursue these principles at theappropriate level of government.

Principles/Elements1. (a) States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and theprinciples of international law, the sovereign right to exploit their own resourcespursuant to their own environmental policies and have the responsibility to ensure that

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activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environmentof other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.

(b) The agreed full incremental cost of achieving benefits associated with forestconservation and sustainable development requires increased international cooperationand should be equitably shared by the international community.

2. (a) States have the sovereign and inalienable right to utilize, manage and developtheir forests in accordance with their development needs and level of socio-economicdevelopment and on the basis of national policies consistent with sustainabledevelopment and legislation, including the conversion of such areas for other useswithin the overall socio-economic development plan and based on rational land-usepolicies.

(b) Forest resources and forest lands should be sustainably managed to meet thesocial, economic, ecological, cultural and spiritual needs of present and futuregenerations. These needs are for forest products and services, such as wood and woodproducts, water, food, fodder, medicine, fuel, shelter, employment, recreation, habitatsfor wildlife, landscape diversity, carbon sinks and reservoirs, and for other forestproducts. Appropriate measures should be taken to protect forests against harmfuleffects of pollution, including air-borne pollution, fires, pests and diseases, in order tomaintain their full multiple value.

(c) The provision of timely, reliable and accurate information on forests and forestecosystems is essential for public understanding and informed decision-making andshould be ensured.

(d) Governments should promote and provide opportunities for the participation ofinterested parties, including local communities and indigenous people, industries,labour, non-governmental organizations and individuals, forest dwellers and women,in the development, implementation and planning of national forest policies.

3. (a) National policies and strategies should provide a framework for increased efforts,including the development and strengthening of institutions and programmes for themanagement, conservation and sustainable development of forests and forest lands.

(b) International institutional arrangements, building on those organizations andmechanisms already in existence, as appropriate, should facilitate internationalcooperation in the field of forests.

(c) All aspects of environmental protection and social and economic development asthey relate to forests and forest lands should be integrated and comprehensive.

4. The vital role of all types of forests in maintaining the ecological processes andbalance at the local, national, regional and global levels through, inter alia, their rolein protecting fragile ecosystems, watersheds and freshwater resources and as richstorehouses of biodiversity and biological resources and sources of genetic material forbiotechnology products, as well as photosynthesis, should be recognized.

5. (a) National forest policies should recognize and duly support the identity, cultureand the rights of indigenous people, their communities and other communities andforest dwellers. Appropriate conditions should be promoted for these groups to enable


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them to have an economic stake in forest use, perform economic activities, and achieveand maintain cultural identity and social organization, as well as adequate levels oflivelihood and well-being, through, inter alia, those land tenure arrangements whichserve as incentives for the sustainable management of forests.

(b) The full participation of women in all aspects of the management, conservationand sustainable development of forests should be actively promoted.

6. (a) All types of forests play an important role in meeting energy requirementsthrough the provision of a renewable source of bio-energy, particularly in developingcountries, and the demands for fuel wood for household and industrial needs should bemet through sustainable forest management, afforestation and reforestation. To thisend, the potential contribution of plantations of both indigenous and introduced speciesfor the provision of both fuel and industrial wood should be recognized.

(b) National policies and programmes should take into account the relationship,where it exists, between the conservation, management and sustainable developmentof forests and all aspects related to the production, consumption, recycling and/or finaldisposal of forest products.

(c) Decisions taken on the management, conservation and sustainable developmentof forest resources should benefit, to the extent practicable, from a comprehensiveassessment of economic and non-economic values of forest goods and services and ofthe environmental costs and benefits. The development and improvement ofmethodologies for such evaluations should be promoted.

(d) The role of planted forests and permanent agricultural crops as sustainable andenvironmentally sound sources of renewable energy and industrial raw material shouldbe recognized, enhanced and promoted. Their contribution to the maintenance ofecological processes, to offsetting pressure on primary/old-growth forest and toproviding regional employment and development with the adequate involvement of localinhabitants should be recognized and enhanced.

(e) Natural forests also constitute a source of goods and services, and theirconservation, sustainable management and use should be promoted.

7. (a) Efforts should be made to promote a supportive international economic climateconducive to sustained and environmentally sound development of forests in allcountries, which include, inter alia, the promotion of sustainable patterns of productionand consumption, the eradication of poverty and the promotion of food security.

(b) Specific financial resources should be provided to developing countries withsignificant forest areas which establish programmes for the conservation of forestsincluding protected natural forest areas. These resources should be directed notably toeconomic sectors which would stimulate economic and social substitution activities.

8. (a) Efforts should be undertaken towards the greening of the world. All countries,notably developed countries, should take positive and transparent action towardsreforestation, afforestation and forest conservation, as appropriate.

(b) Efforts to maintain and increase forest cover and forest productivity should beundertaken in ecologically, economically and socially sound ways through the

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Annex 2

rehabilitation, reforestation and re-establishment of trees and forests on unproductive,degraded and deforested lands, as well as through the management of existing forestresources.

(c) The implementation of national policies and programmes aimed at forestmanagement, conservation and sustainable development, particularly in developingcountries, should be supported by international financial and technical cooperation,including through the private sector, where appropriate.

(d) Sustainable forest management and use should be carried out in accordance withnational development policies and priorities and on the basis of environmentally soundnational guidelines. In the formulation of such guidelines, account should be taken, asappropriate and if applicable, of relevant internationally agreed methodologies andcriteria.

(e) Forest management should be integrated with management of adjacent areas soas to maintain ecological balance and sustainable productivity.

(f) National policies and/or legislation aimed at management, conservation andsustainable development of forests should include the protection of ecologically viablerepresentative or unique examples of forests, including primary/old-growth forests,cultural, spiritual, historical, religious and other unique and valued forests of nationalimportance.

(g) Access to biological resources, including genetic material, shall be with dueregard to the sovereign rights of the countries where the forests are located and to thesharing on mutually agreed terms of technology and profits from biotechnologyproducts that are derived from these resources.

(h) National policies should ensure that environmental impact assessments should becarried out where actions are likely to have significant adverse impacts on importantforest resources, and where such actions are subject to a decision of a competentnational authority.

9. (a) The efforts of developing countries to strengthen the management, conservationand sustainable development of their forest resources should be supported by theinternational community, taking into account the importance of redressing externalindebtedness, particularly where aggravated by the net transfer of resources todeveloped countries, as well as the problem of achieving at least the replacement valueof forests through improved market access for forest products, especially processedproducts. In this respect, special attention should also be given to the countriesundergoing the process of transition to market economies.

(b) The problems that hinder efforts to attain the conservation and sustainable useof forest resources and that stem from the lack of alternative options available to localcommunities, in particular the urban poor and poor rural populations who areeconomically and socially dependent on forests and forest resources, should beaddressed by Governments and the international community.

(c) National policy formulation with respect to all types of forests should takeaccount of the pressures and demands imposed on forest ecosystems and resources from


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influencing factors outside the forest sector, and intersectoral means of dealing withthese pressures and demands should be sought.

10. New and additional financial resources should be provided to developing countriesto enable them to sustainably manage, conserve and develop their forest resources,including through afforestation, reforestation and combating deforestation and forestand land degradation.

11. In order to enable, in particular, developing countries to enhance their endogenouscapacity and to better manage, conserve and develop their forest resources, the accessto and transfer of environmentally sound technologies and corresponding know-howon favourable terms, including on concessional and

preferential terms, as mutually agreed, in accordance with the relevant provisions ofAgenda 21, should be promoted, facilitated and financed, as appropriate.

12. (a) Scientific research, forest inventories and assessments carried out by nationalinstitutions which take into account, where relevant, biological, physical, social andeconomic variables, as well as technological development and its application in the fieldof sustainable forest management, conservation and development, should bestrengthened through effective modalities, including international cooperation. In thiscontext, attention should also be given to research and development of sustainablyharvested non-wood products.

(b) National and, where appropriate, regional and international institutionalcapabilities in education, training, science, technology, economics, anthropology andsocial aspects of forests and forest management are essential to the conservation andsustainable development of forests and should be strengthened.

(c) International exchange of information on the results of forest and forestmanagement research and development should be enhanced and broadened, asappropriate, making full use of education and training institutions, including those inthe private sector.

(d) Appropriate indigenous capacity and local knowledge regarding the conservationand sustainable development of forests should, through institutional and financialsupport and in collaboration with the people in the local communities concerned, berecognized, respected, recorded, developed and, as appropriate, introduced in theimplementation of programmes. Benefits arising from the utilization of indigenousknowledge should therefore be equitably shared with such people.

13. (a) Trade in forest products should be based on non-discriminatory andmultilaterally agreed rules and procedures consistent with international trade law andpractices. In this context, open and free international trade in forest products shouldbe facilitated.

(b) Reduction or removal of tariff barriers and impediments to the provision ofbetter market access and better prices for higher value-added forest products and theirlocal processing should be encouraged to enable producer countries to better conserveand manage their renewable forest resources.

(c) Incorporation of environmental costs and benefits into market forces and

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mechanisms, in order to achieve forest conservation and sustainable development,should be encouraged both domestically and internationally.

(d) Forest conservation and sustainable development policies should be integratedwith economic, trade and other relevant policies.

(e) Fiscal, trade, industrial, transportation and other policies and practices that maylead to forest degradation should be avoided. Adequate policies, aimed at management,conservation and sustainable development of forests, including, where appropriate,incentives, should be encouraged.

14. Unilateral measures, incompatible with international obligations or agreements, torestrict and/or ban international trade in timber or other forest products should beremoved or avoided, in order to attain long-term sustainable forest management.

15. Pollutants, particularly air-borne pollutants, including those responsible for acidicdeposition, that are harmful to the health of forest ecosystems at the local, national,regional and global levels should be controlled.


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TRANSFORMINGSustainable Development Diplomacy

Lessons Learned fromGlobal Forest Governance

ISBN: 978-90-8585-533-0

Transforming sustainable development diplomacy: lessons learned from global forest governance

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